When reflecting on my past, there are times that I feel as if I’ve been reading a novel, and the person that I am was merely a fictional character. If my life was fiction, and my problems aren’t really mine, then I cannot identify who this person is that has been committed to reading my life story, day after day. When will my next story begin, and when will this one end?

Living my life like this, some days I am more aware than others. There are times that I go weeks before realizing that I haven’t been present in my reality for ages, and I’ve been merely floating through. I don’t know how I do it, and I’m unaware of it when I do, but it’s as if I can place myself outside of my body, and examine my life from an outsider’s point of view. It’s always me, the player, and myself, the viewer. I don’t know where I go, I just know that I don’t feel fully here.

I have tethers- things that pull me back in, and get my head out of the clouds. My best friend is one, and running is another. With every joke she tells, I feel my laughter dance around inside my head and fill my body with awareness. With each step, I can feel myself connecting with the world around me as my feet connect with the asphalt. I also have triggers- things that set me adrift, as I float out into my own private reality. Music, books, and movies. Each note in a song fills me up like helium in a balloon, until I’m floating away from the world. Lastly, I have things that connect the two. Painting and writing are the best at it, because they require an intricate mixture of imagination, creativity, and truth. In art, the real world and fiction collide and explode onto canvas in a dance that only the artist knows. With writing, each word swims into formation and breathes feeling into the lungs of the reader, straight from the mouth of the author. I highly value any artist’s creation, because it such a personal and deeply emotional story. By sharing their art, an artist is allowing others to get a small glimpse of how this world looks to them, like trying on a pair of 3D glasses.

To me, I believe that this is life. Nature and the people around you catch you when you begin to float back into space, and they keep you grounded. Close friends, family pets, and the smell of freshly baked cookies. Those are things that remind us that we’re alive, and just how very alive we are. The cinema, music, and art. Those are the things that help us to escape into a world all our own when we become too overwhelmed with reality. We must value these things, however small they are, because these are the things that give life meaning. I believe that living afloat is a gift, because it allows me to view the world differently, in a way that is unique and all my own. I may bounce between the two as often as I want, but the beauty in living life afloat comes from the view you get when you stand between the two.