floating

In my mind, I am floating down a river, bobbing up and down, sometimes underwater, other times not, sometimes fast, sometimes not. At the moment my river is flowing fast, and I can see rapids in the distance. I do sure hope I can hold onto a boulder in the river before going over the rapids. No doubt I am not the first one to compare life to a river and it is not something that I often worry about. Life is just like that. At the moment though I seem to spend a lot of time floating on my back, gazing at the passing clouds, being (blissfully?) oblivious to what goes on around me. Sometimes entire days go by and I can't actually say what I have done in any detail. Suddenly it is the middle of March when it was only just the beginning. One day blends into the next and the next and the next. My mind is often wandering. At the same time, things get done without a glitch and I am not sure if anyone even notices that I am escaping? Not that there is much to escape from, my life is perfectly ok as far as I can tell.

You may ask yourself why I am pondering over this. Last week I witnessed something that frightened me and that reminded me of the fragility of our minds. It was only a few days that I got the whole picture and it has been on my mind ever since. So, last week, a friend of mine, after our gym class and upon entering the changing room looked around in utter astonishment, having no clue how she got there and what she was doing there. This was really scary to observe, it seemed like she was surfacing after a long sleep. She then seemed to recover, found her locker and got dressed. She even convinced me she was absolutely fine and we parted as we usually do. Except that she wasn't fine. She called her partner and son several times, drove home, ate dinner and what not. She can't remember anything at all, she can't remember leaving the gym class and she can't remember talking to me, or her family, nor can she remember how she got home. It was as if her body and brain were acting independently from each other. She is now undergoing a series of tests and I really hope she is ok. She has not experienced a similar episode since.

I tend to take it for granted that I am functioning ok, that I am fine. But there is a fine line between being absent-minded and between being absent altogether. When do you cross the boundary? I sometimes forget that I have already done something but that is normal, yes? When do you need to really worry that something might be wrong? Would you notice even? I wonder what went on in my friends mind as she carried on with her tasks whilst at the same time, part of her was missing altogether. Maybe it was not like that at all. Maybe it was only later that her brain deleted the evening? It is impossible to say. Have you experienced anything similar?

I am glad I am absent-minded rather than absent but I do sometimes wonder where my memories are. I am writing this blog to capture the ever-changing scenery on the riverbank, so I can look back later and read about details that might otherwise have been forgotten. My mind may be wandering but it is still anchored in reality I'd like to think. I only wish I had captured my life for a much longer time.

Time to surface I think and pay attention to the lecture I am recording and that I will need to edit later. I hope you are having a good week. I don't think I'll be back here until Monday, I am counting down the sleeps to my weekend away in Amsterdam. Cannae wait. x