Does It Sometimes Feel Like Life Is Passing You By?

I used to say this to my wife, and she really didn’t know what to make of it.  Our family is fairly typical in that it feels overscheduled both in day-to-day life and during summer break. Because I was unhappy in my marriage and unfulfilled at work, I also made plenty of time for mountain-biking and climbing, including camping trips where both could happen (good times!). If I wasn’t self-medicating with those, I was using drugs.  Yet there I was, complaining.  I wasn’t very good at articulating why I felt that way because I really wasn’t very sure myself.  I loved getting away, but I’d always miss my kids a little bit (they seem to excel at taking a little bit of fun out of a lot of things in unexpected ways).  We have great family trips that are about as much work as anybody wants to put in, and we have fun together.  I’ve travelled a fair bit and it didn’t feel like that was the issue.  Because it was elusive, and because that’s what many of us humans do, I would shrug off the feeling and move on to my next duty or distraction.  My self-protective “Meh” once again covered my deeper self’s foreboding, and another chance to turn it all around was missed.  Years of meh passed, wreathed in meh-colored fog. I’m sure I found a moment of joy in there somewhere, but I can’t be certain because I can’t recall a single one.

I don’t say this now that I’ve found a strong sense of direction and purpose.  I don’t say it, because I don’t feel it (ok maybe a little when I watch a great new snowboarding movie, but it’s easier to recognize pending injury now that I’m older too).  Having a fulfilling direction and purpose has given my existence a greater weight, because I have the capacity to carry it (If you build it, it will come!).  My thoughts and feelings now hold a tighter orbit, held in place by what I could term a gravity, or gravitas, that wasn’t present before.  Being more grounded within myself has introduced a greater calm and I find myself much less likely to fly off into fancy or FOMO. Now, on those rare occasions where I do fly off, it’s much easier to find the ground and I find I can fly by dead- reckoning, instead of hope and longing, instruments and theory.  The improved quality of the experience- the presence allowed by this approach- has made all the difference in my daily life.  I am now attuned and immersed in the symphony of all life has to offer.  I find a wider availability of hues and colors, textures and tones, tumults and tangles, the plodding suck of trudgery, the brilliant failures and iridescent joys- all weaving together.  All somehow each dependent on the other, just as we are, enfolding and defining me and one another, to create the full human experience we were each born to have.  Not only can I now tell you about certain joys, I can tell you about moments of failure, and I can vividly describe my particular rut.  But I can’t tell you which is more meaningful or necessary.