Sometimes I feel so disconnected from everything around me. I am in the midst of a crowd, I am engaged, talking, moving, but in one blink of an eye I suddenly feel completely alone and disconnected from where I am. This confuses me greatly.
For instance, I arrive late to my team meeting that consists of about 15 people. I am slightly late so I am sort of banished to the back of the room in what I call the "time out" chair. There is no room in at the main table for me, nor is there a chair. There is however, 6/8 chairs that sit alone with a little table top and I sit in it feeling giant in a tiny chair and at the same time small and invisible as I sit at the back of the space staring blindly at the table full of people that seem fully engaged.
I could scoot right up to the table and force myself into this group, I've done that, but something sits in my gut that is just letting me feel the separation and the gap in my connection. Is it because I need to learn a lesson? Is it that I have to force myself to re-think or engage differently? Maybe....or maybe it's just my time to try to figure out what it really means?
I've often felt alone in a crowd....like I am here but not really HERE. I have discussed this several times with trained professionals, friends and random strangers....the conclusion is always the same...figure out what's missing. Learning to be present in our own lives is hard.
A friend of mine recently said to me "you always are living in the past or the future and you forget to live in the present." That's true, I can't deny it. But I'm not sure how to change that. There are many things I liked about my past that I wish I could keep, could hold on to, could continue to have but clearly the Universe has decided it's not to be because things have moved past that point. Then I plan for the future...I look ahead, I try to work with purpose and determination towards where I want to go, who I want to be, what I want to have...but then it makes me forget the present, the here and now.
I am focused now on my upcoming vacation. Everything I am doing in the next few weeks is around the fact that I will be gone for a week. So every meeting, every social event, every work schedule is based around when I won't be here....the future. So my present is muddled by my future. I can't really do much about the past except miss it..or laugh at it...or be glad it's just that - my past and hope I don't make the same mistakes moving forward...so again....the future. I try not to dwell on the past as I move ahead but how do you find the balance between the then and the now?
I remember as a kid, we always looked forward to things like spring break, or Christmas break, or anytime we were away from school...then when we were off we looked ahead, with some sort of dread, at the time we had to go back. No one really teaches us how to live in the moment. To be in this very place and time with purpose and conviction. As a matter of fact it's exhausting my brain right this very minute as I try to contemplate how exactly to do that.
How can I be where I am when I am always planning where I need to be? Good question isn't it. How can I remain separated from planning and learning to live?
