I Can Still Do the Life Even When I Don’t Feel Inside It

Dear Delyara, I can pack the lunches, make the appointments, show up at the meeting, remember the form, answer the text, pay the bill, refill the prescription, schedule the haircut, smile at the neighbor, fold the clothes, cook the dinner, help with the math worksheet, and still not feel deeply present in the life performing all of it. Function is not presence. I know that now. And the fact that I can keep functioning even while feeling spiritually absent from my own days makes me worry about how long a person can drift before the drift becomes identity. That question has been sitting in me like a stone.