When Did My Life Become Mostly Jobs?

I had one of those days recently where I didn’t stop.

I worked, sorted food, answered messages, tidied things away, remembered things other people needed, moved from one task to the next.

Nothing terrible happened. It wasn’t even unusually difficult or a day that was out of the ordinary.

But by the end of it I was not only exhausted but had the strangest feeling.

I had spent a whole day living my life, and yet somehow there had been very little of me in it.

Where was I? Where had I lit up? Where had I felt like Charly as a person not a role… employee, mother, partner, daughter?

I couldn’t place one moment.

I thought back over the last few weeks, and I discovered time had been marching onwards, days had passed, seasons had changed. But there were very few moments where I could honestly say

“Yes! There I was, I was just me”.

I have for a long time been feeling a deep sense of dissatisfaction, which I felt guilty for even acknowledging. Because on the surface I have everything I could ask for. A home, employment, a wonderful loving partner, two beautiful children. That’s not to say my life is perfect, but it is arguably what is classed as a “good life”.

So why was I not satisfied?

Was there something wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just be content with all of the wonderful things I do have?

Because I am deeply grateful for them.

As the days and weeks passed, I have been contemplating this feeling.

How can a person have a full and deeply involving life and yet still feel that they are absent and not participating in their own life?

And the question I kept returning to again and again was – Where am I in all of this?

How do I even begin to answer what I want in life when I am spending so much time scanning for the next thing that needs doing?

And I realised that there is a big difference between maintaining the life you are living versus actually meeting it.

Because something different happens when you meet your life rather than just move through it. When you begin to notice what moments, music and people affect you. When you make space for the things that matter. When you can respond to what you encounter rather than simply moving through the day on autopilot.

When you begin to make contact with your life, rather than life simply happening to and around you.

Why can one afternoon leave us feeling more like ourselves, while another seems to use us up?

Why do certain people, places, activities or moments make something in us come online.

What makes the difference between being alive and experiencing ourselves as alive?

The dance is the attempt to understand this better.