the lights are on, but ...

this just keeps getting weirder. I am observing myself feeling numb, but not actually feeling numb. I know I am in completely different emotional territory than I have ever been before, but there is a narrator in my head telling me about it -- I am not actually experiencing it.

I used to wake up excited about the new day, now I just wake up. I'm functioning fine. I still talk, I still smile and laugh. I just don't feel anything. At first I thought maybe this was the good kind of neutral... you know... the Zen kind?

Except that if it was, I think I would feel some motion -- some expansion/contraction, some joy/sadness, some polarity. I suspect I'd be having some kind of interaction with the present moment, wouldn't I? I don't feel very present. And even that doesn't bother me.

Today my son turns 18. Last night as I turned out the light to go to sleep, I realized that 18 years ago at that very moment, I was in labor. And that 18 years from this moment, I will be 60. And instead of feeling excited about the next phase of my life, I heard myself thinking, What's the point of all this? So what? Eighteen years seems like forever; the future looks all stretched out before me -- heavy and dull and flat. It feels like a lot of time to kill.

Like I said, this just keeps getting weirder ...

The Witness part of me is watching all this with some mild amusement. The Narrator is saying things like, she wondered how many people walk around feeling this way all the time. The Writer in me wants to document it all, like a travelogue of a visit to a very different culture.

The Curious part of me wants to just pay attention and learn all about this experience. The Worrier tries to rally some angst, but none of the other parts are playing along. The Wise part of me knows it will all pass soon enough, even if I do nothing about it.

So I guess I'm just in watch and wait mode. For now, anyway.