When you are a child you believe you can change your life.
You learn and do all sorts of things and life does change. But as you get older, you find yourself back to square one. The long journey you began to discover the world, to move up the social ladder, to get ahead in life no longer matters when you get older. Career is no longer important, children grow older and do not need everything, slowly but surely they disappear from your life. You don't have to do everything together anymore. They go to school alone, they go to the shops alone, they go out with their friends and find jobs and earn their own money. They also don't need you as a parent to help them pick out their clothes or know the difference between right and wrong, hot and cold. You, as a parent are back to square one while they continue to climb the ladder.
More and more I find myself doing the same things I used to do. I occasionally read again, I do crossword puzzles again and I don't think food is so important anymore. I walk around outside and take care of the animals while picking some weeds. I don't feel like doing the groceries or cooking and the laundry is slipping by more and more. I don't have to be active anymore, to force myself to do everything I haven't felt like doing for years. I don't want to be productive anymore either. Just doing nothing, letting the world pass by, lost in thought or staring into nothingness.
Staring into nothingness... I feel a kind of dizziness in my head and know that I am closing myself off from the world around me. It's something that used to happen to me a lot in my childhood and it was the way to feel nothing, to just not be there. It's not something I do consciously but it happens to me. It just happens. Vaguely I am still aware of the world around me. Nowadays this is also happening to me more and more often. Slowly but surely, everything from the past is becoming present again.
Prompt used: nothingness
