As It Appears
Reflections on presence, perception, and intuition
January 27, 2026
I am learning how much trust it takes to remain present when nothing feels particularly reassuring. What it does feel like is staying. So, despite the desire to understand, learn, and respond to any cue thrown at — or even whispered to — me, everything is uncomfortable.
Trying alternatives doesn’t soothe. My discomfort doesn’t want soothing. I try listening harder. But it doesn’t respond to more effort. I listen, and I try to reorganize internally, focusing my attention on what is present rather than on outcomes.
Nothing makes sense. I don’t seem to fit. And efforts to go deeper into meaning leave me fatigued.
I’m missing the quiet communication that once came unheeded, yet I knew in my bones to be valid. Unaware that I did anything to stop it, yet it is gone. There was no magic in how it appeared. It was a constant of life. And then, life felt a little quieter, a little flatter, until it stilled to tempt me to a complete stop.
Isolation seems a possible solution and comfort. But when friends call, the time together does bring short-term relief. No answers, no meaning — just a pause from the nagging inner unrest.
The flat torment feels harsher because I once had a robust toolkit to navigate it. All the tools are now rusty or broken. And my heart feels broken and sad if I even glance at that old toolkit.
But boredom has never been an answer. My busy mind keeps my body active, even when the two don’t work in tandem.
So I return to the activities that bring only an absence of active pain: physical activity, art, the time when friends call, time with animals. In doing so, I practice presence, exercising attention and focus even when meaning is elusive.
Choosing activities that once carried deeper resonance, I trust they may at some point return their message. Or perhaps, if they don’t, an alternative activity or idea will reveal new significance. Because, for me, stopping isn’t an option. I need to keep moving. Somehow.
Some days, I notice my reactions are less than they once were. But I am powerless to change them. I react as I feel — even when I am not fully feeling. My customary effervescence is absent. Perhaps it is not gone, only difficult to reclaim. Yet this is where I am, and so I continue.
I interact as I am, but it is as if there is glass between myself and the world. I still respond with the full capacity of what I am capable of at that time, yet the glass distorts how others see me.
Deep within, there remains something alive that keeps me going. And I allow it. It usually has a voice. But that voice has been silent and I miss it.
Trust, I realize, is required not only of others but of myself — to keep showing up, to remain attentive to the subtle movements of mind, heart, and body, even when clarity feels absent. And in that trust, I honor the human potential within me to navigate uncertainty and discover meaning once again.
