Over the past 3-4 months I’ve felt very disconnected from my life and the people in it, and lately that feeling of disconnection has only grown and the reality of this really hit me today kind of out of nowhere. I’m torn between feeling like I’m just going through the motions of living life and feeling like I’m spectating my life instead of actually living it. I guess you could call what I’m doing performing- I’m performing the roles of daughter, friend, student, productive and working member of society… I’m doing all of it without feeling most of it and when I do feel something, it’s not pleasant.

All of this has led me to realize something- I’m not happy, but I’m not depressed either, I’m just existing, feeling aimless and unsure of everything, unsure of myself and my decisions. I know I want more for myself, more for my life, but I’m not sure what that more is right now.

But I know this isn’t the way things should be. Someone shouldn’t feel like they are performing life and their different roles in it. Someone shouldn’t feel like they are spectating their life either, they should feel like they are living it to their fullest potential and good or bad, they know every experience is a chance to grow, and right now I don’t feel that way because I don’t feel like I feel anything except disconnected.

Feeling this way has led me to wonder if this is something that every writer experiences at one point or another in their lives. Because as weird as this might sound, the more disconnected I feel from my life and the people in it, the more connected I feel to my writing. Being disconnected from everything else has brought me closer to every word I put down on a page, to every word I preserve in ink or in a word document. Like never before I feel this unrelenting need to write and keep writing and not hold back due to fear or it being a bad first draft. For the first time I feel no need to edit myself or hold myself back, I feel free with my writing in a way I’ve never felt before.

This raises the question of- has my disconnection from everything else led me to this point? Or is it just coincidence? I know they say when you choose to be a writer, you have to make a lot of sacrifices- losing friends, upsetting family, missing out on events, etc. But do we have to completely disconnect ourselves in order to be the writer we want to be? Is my disconnection from my life and the people in it life’s way of clearing things out so I can focus on my writing? So I can become a stronger writer? Does that even seem right to think?

I have so many questions and no answers for any of them. I feel like my life is a Rubik Cube that I’m trying to figure out and match up according to where everything belongs, but right now it’s just a jumbled mess where nothing is matching up… but then I question- does everything really have to match up perfectly to be figured out? I’m not so sure it does, at least not anymore.

I know I’ve asked a lot of questions in this post and I’m really interested to know your thoughts/opinions/answers to these questions because I really want to know if anyone else has ever experienced this and how much it changed you. Feeling this way has been one of the strangest things I’ve ever experienced and even though I’m not sure where this journey will take me, I know one thing for sure- I’m ready to see where it takes me.