Published on 12, July, 2020
I feel very strange today. Disoriented. Lost.
I've tried all day to do some writing, but it's like trying to squeeze water from a lump of wood. I've tried to do some reading, too, but that's still refusing to come back to me. There was a time when I always had my head in a book. Now... it's just a jumble of meaningless words. I went out for a short walk earlier, but I was glad to get back. Too many people hanging around in the warm evening, at the end of the weekend - skin burned from a day on the beach, a bit drunk, looking at phones (as usual), talking loudly, eating take-away. The rubbish on the pavements and in the gutters. Cars passing endlessly. No sense of anything for me to latch onto or find meaning in.
On Thursday, it's the first anniversary of my mother's passing - although last year, the 26th was a Wednesday. I'll set time aside on both evenings to sit quietly and remember her. I've taken the week off work for the occasion. I've got nothing special planned. The way it's feeling, each day will be pretty much the same. I don't want to do anything special, anyway. Just be by myself. Me and the cat. This time last year, we were all together in her home, sharing those precious moments as she began her final decline. Where has that year gone?
On days like this, it really feels like simply going through the motions of a life - because that's what I have to do. Go too far along that road, of course, and it can easily start to lose its meaning. And I don't think I've found the meaning of it yet. Maybe there isn't one. Just be here, for a while - a span of years - and then pass on.
I feel more alienated from society, in many ways, than I have before. I simply no longer understand the things that seem to preoccupy everyone. I no longer feel any of the urges or excitements that I felt when younger: the sense of something new waiting for me just ahead some way. I no longer even think that I'm interested in trying to fulfill the ambitions I once had: to travel, to publish books, to seek new truths or experiences, to find love. I've been through many of those things already, and they haven't given me any sense of satisfaction or fulfillment. I can't seem to shake off, just lately, that underlying sense I have of things gradually winding down, like an old clock someone's forgotten to wind. The ticks are getting more drawn out by the day. The hands are slowing. Maybe exhaustion is catching up with me.
Sorry to be so downbeat. I just needed to put something down in words.
Anyone else get to feel this way?
yes... growing as core individuals just takes us a bit longer. (I learnt to drive at 29) What's not spent is saved, that's generally how I see it. Don't need to leave behind anything when we pass if it's already there... (planets, stars, space and time)
I over indulged in psychology and philosophy which overloaded me a bit. But to reduce that twisting tightening sensation with one's inner mind required intervention for me. (aka medication and therapy)
For the here and now? I volunteered to clean out cages at a cat boarding place to meet all the different species of pet cats.
Sounds like a good way to be. I think I, too, overindulged. I didn't get to uni until I was 28 and didn't get in through the normal route of school qualifications - just a one-year access course, which wasn't really adequate preparation. I struggled academically and had to work very hard, so I missed out on a lot of the other aspects of uni life. Afterwards, instead of feeling 'educated', I felt even more conscious of the huge gaps in my knowledge. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I wanted to catch up on everything - history, philosophy, science... all things I knew very little about. So I just dived into reading. 30 years later, my head is still pretty much a scrapbook. I think that, if I could apply myself to learning properly, I could actually make some headway. But my concentration levels (it could be ADD) always let me down. I can't focus on anything for long.