Eight

I sometimes feel as if there is something wrong.  With me.  Deep inside.  If something happened about which I'm not fully aware.  As if there was a traumatic event that happened but that I've somehow supressed. 

Is something wrong?

I'm not sure.  Something doesn't feel right.  I used to feel.  I remember feeling.  I remember a time when a song came on in the car and I had to pull over I was crying so hard.  I don't even remember the song now.  But I used to feel.   Now, sometimes, a song will hit me.  Or words.  Or a scent.  And I'll have a memory or a thought.  But I don't feel. 

So, that's clearly not good.  But not bad. 

I wonder if it is just aging.  I'm not old, not even 40.  But I remember feeling things more intensely just a few years ago. 

Maybe it is just that the path is steady now.  Has been for a time.  You know, you keep cruising down the same bumpless path, you get comfortable.  Possibly complacent.  Maybe you lose your capacity to feel?  Or maybe you just avoid the bumps or the detours that create feeling?

Are the people I pass on the street feeling the same way?  How do they experience the world?

What if I had taken an alternate path?  At the beginning, there are so many choices.  Almost too many.  Some are very, very similar.  Some are vastly different than others.  Some allow you to rejoin a previous path, others take you far away from certain choices. 

When you are standing there, with 50 paths before you, it is difficult to choose.  But also, you feel secure, confident.  You know you'll be fine. 

Once you go just a little way down the path, you may come back.  You may see other paths that veer off.  And you take one.  And now you can't go back and certain paths are closed. 

Would I feel more if I had chosen more deliberately the first time?  What doors would have closed had I walked down a path that now seems like it would have been a better choice?  What detours and obstacles would have arisen on that path?  Or the one next to it?  What am I not seeing?

The thing is, it is impossible to second-guess.  You can only go forward, because all the paths end up the same way.  But the journeys can be slightly or vastly different. 

So now, here I am.  This is the path I'm on because it is the one I've chosen to be on.  Sure, I've made an attempt or two to get off.  But basically, the path is my choice. 

I can now see more of the journey than I understood when I first started.  Can see the small choices that have now closed certain paths and opened others. 

I still feel as though something is wrong.  And I write these words because they want to get out, but I'm not at all certain it is wise.  It all sounds very typical. 

Everything is good.  And I don't feel anything.  And I wonder how long that will last.