I'm On the Outside, I'm Looking In..

Have you ever felt like you were standing at the edge of your life and not actually living it? Like you are a bystander in a rush, watching in a reflection as the world goes on around you. Your own life goes on around you, and yet you feel stunted. Stopped, breathless. Unable to move forward, yet unable to go back. In limbo.

I am suddenly there and I have no idea how I got here. As if some mystical turning point occurred and a switch was flicked inside me and I ceased to be able to function as anything but a shell of myself in my own life. I look the same. I act the same. But I feel different.

I don't know if the sudden blunt change in season that Daylight Savings has brought has made this realization more clear, or if it has been there all along and I am just suddenly aware. Was this a gradual occurrence? Like a dimmer switch in a restaurant when they try to change the mood. Who's to say.

I don't necessarily hate my life right now, but I certainly don't love it. I'm indifferent to it all. I could take it or leave it as it were. I love my job, but the sudden change in office has everyone on edge and walking on eggshells on a daily basis as we break into our new routines, our new environments. So drastically different from before.

My friends are all busy with their own lives. They don't not care, their lives are just hectic with kids and work and spouses or boyfriends. Impending divorces or pregnancies. In-laws and upcoming holidays. I clearly have none of these troubles, so how could I relate?

And naturally the holidays looming makes me long for several things. Partnership being one of the obvious. But I always miss my father most this time of year. Sure he found ways to conjure up some form of argument whenever a holiday approached, but that was his way. I would take the World War 3 of arguments with him just to hear him bellow again, just to have him here to watch Dylan open gifts at Christmas and finally be old enough to be able to appreciate it.

Then of course you remember the Ghosts of Holidays pasts. The good, the bad. The memories of ex's flooding my mind, recent and not recent. The horrid and regretted and then the few, the very few who were looked upon fondly in hindsight. Making me wonder now how I am 30 and alone awaiting yet another holiday season.

But what do I know anyway, I'm on the outside...I'm looking in.