Hcmchchi bcyi

I spend a silly amount of time thinking about how stupidly I feel I lived my life. I sit myself up next to everyone else and marvel at how utterly clueless I was. I did not live with intention. I can count on one hand the big decisions I made thoughtfully and still have fingers left over. It’s not that I’m unhappy with where I landed…in fact, all things considered, it’s no small miracle how easy my life has been. If guardian angels are a thing, mine figured out they drew the short straw by the time I was 20 and deserves a medal of honor. I think mostly it bothers me because I don’t understand why. Life, the world, the nature of people…they just never really landed. My life took place inside my head while my body just bounced off circumstances like a pinball. It’s not like nobody noticed, but instead of trying to …I don’t know…educate me? Make me more sensible?…I was described as sensitive and sheltered from as much as possible. My innocence was precious. I don’t know if anyone could have changed me, prepared me. But I know no one tried. To be fair, when I reached the age where I couldn’t be so constantly protected and the shocks started coming and the mistakes started happening, they didn’t seem surprised. They would clean up my mess, set me back on my feet, and wait for the next fall. I fell a lot. The future did not exist. I was going to go to school for one thing…not because I had an idea of what I wanted my life to look like but because it was expected I would go to school and that was my favorite subject. Then I fell in love and couldn’t imagine leaving him, got my heart broken, and it took me four more years, a marriage, and a child before a hazy idea of “future” and a notion of adulthood began to waver into being. It took a baby to get me out of my head. It still took several more years of stumbling, but they were fewer, farther between, and less catastrophic. And I never dropped that baby. I never felt motherhood the way others seemed to feel it, though. She was a precious responsibility, a separate soul I was helping along on her way. I never wanted to shield her from life; I wanted her to be able to live it. I came to understand my parents’ choices, but could never relate to them. Always wondered if that was because I always kept one foot inside my head. We grew up together, she and I. I’m not entirely sure I ever could have without her forcing me to look and see and learn so I could teach her. I didn’t look back and see this inherent flaw in myself until I hit my 40s, and it’s bothered me ever since. A sensation that I was born missing some basic pieces, many of which I’ve never been able to form more than a crumb of to hold onto. I’m self conscious of it now, wonder if people can feel the lack in me when I speak to them and maybe that’s why they’ve always been happy to leave me alone. I see just enough now to feel incomplete. It makes me sad. I can see the beauty in the life I lived. Often it felt less like the pinball and more like floating above it all and just letting the current take me where it would, trusting it would be a good place. There is still a lot of that sensation left, and it can be a familiar comfort to me. It just missed real solid depth. The shadows weren’t that deep black that makes the light stand out. There wasn’t a lot of fulfillment or satisfaction or meaning because I couldn’t see that those were important and I should strive for them. It wasn’t just that I had no value, it was that I never existed as a person who was a part of this world and that my interaction with it would serve to fill in all my blank spots. I live more mindfully now. Still stumble into things and see where they take me, but they mean more now because I’m paying attention. I want things and act to make them part of my life. At least 35 years too late, shamefully, but better than not at all. Maybe I’ll feel whole by the end or more age will bring me more peace with my story in general. I am essentially happy, after all, and I can’t say with certainty that’s not because part of me has never lost the ability to float. Maybe I can just kick a bit and float in that direction.