Drifting

I’m drifting.

I knew it would happen.

I have always had a propensity to take things too lightly, and only partially engage with the world around me. I mean, I have traveled, worked and lived overseas, and count people from all over the planet as friends, but this only makes me feel further removed from  my everyday existence. I turn up for work, and put the hours in, but my polite chatter about the football or the weather, my offers to make coffee, even my efficient use of Excel, all belie the fact that I am rarely even vaguely interested in what I’m doing there. I used to be, but now I feel an apathetic indifference to the career path I once cared enough about to get up and study at 6am before work. Is that normal? Maybe  it’s all part of ‘growing’

Actually, with each passing year, I feel as if I am growing further away from my old life. Even from my old friends and family. I used to think I was a boy from the village who’d gone out to explore the world, but to one day return and settle down, embarrassing my children and grandchildren as I grow old with my schoolyard friends. Now, if I return to my home town, I am feel like I’m not actually from there, that I am a guy who lives in the big city, visiting for the weekend.

It’s kind of an odd feeling – but at the moment, I have no anchor, no spirituality. No spiritual anchor. I realise now that years ago, when I worked in a plant nursery, I was much more connected to myself, the planet and the things around me than now. For a number of years I worked long hard hours, out in the fields I came to just ‘be’ connected, and part of the world around me; I sensed when it would rain long before it actually did, I touched the earth with my hands everyday, I watched wild animals and birds, and understood what they were doing. When I first came to live in London I at least took an interest in the people around me, the plants in peoples gardens, the birds overhead or the types of trees that lined the streets. Now, I don’t even do that. Now I have no family nearby, no house, no permanent address, no close friends in my neighbourhood, no hobby, no job I really care about. It’s kind of scary, but I think I’ve accidentally become a nihilist.