Inertia

You think you're numb.

You can't feel a thing, aren't phased by any glaring sort of emotion, aren't coerced into action due to an overpowering gut instinct too great to comprehend.

You think you've lost your passion, unstirred by any sort of feeling, unmoved by a lack of empathy or compassion in what surrounds you.

You move through your days listless and unexpectant, not hoping for much but just for enough to get by to the next day.

And you're okay with this.

You've settled for this life of mundane content, knowing all the while you are capable of taking on so much more than you're given, as evidenced by the acute, inscrutable pang of emptiness that has burrowed deep inside you that you've managed to ignore.

The situation you've found yourself is not ideal by any means, but for you, for now, it's fine.

Simply… fine.

And then something comes along to knock you off that path of inertia you've been traveling on for God knows how long.

Something so huge, something so profound in its meaning has reached out from the blur that is your life and shakes up your world, shows you that the dormant emotions you've had within you were just idling, waiting for something to stir them up.

What's less surprising is where that catalyst is coming from.

a hand from the past reaches out to shake up my future.

I couldn't have said it better myself (which I did, November 21, 2008).

Same situation.

Same catalyst.

New year.