Awareness vs Presence

 

It’s 9:47 PM and I’m staring at German sentences I actually like.

That’s the problem.

I chose this. I enjoy it. There’s something precise and satisfying about it...like progress you can feel when your brain is working properly. But lately it isn’t.

I read a sentence. I understand the words. But the meaning doesn’t come together.

It’s like my brain receives everything and then just… stops short of doing anything with it.

I try again. Slower this time.

Still nothing.

Work doesn’t really end anymore. It just changes form. Same brain but different tab. By the time I’m done, the day feels processed instead of lived.

And somehow, despite already feeling full, my job expanded anyway.

12+ groups newly added to WhatsApp alone.

Twelve streams of reports every forty-five minutes. Frequent enough to interrupt, not frequent enough to resolve anything. Nothing urgent on its own, but together they create this constant low hum. Like something always needs a glance, a check, a quiet acknowledgment.

No pressure, technically.

Just no silence.

Somewhere in all of that, my brain adapted.

Not by getting better but by stepping back.

I still respond. I still complete things. But there’s less of me in it. Like I’m present in function, but not really in weight.

Even my body seems to agree.

My back has started reminding me that I don’t really stop anymore. I can’t tell if I got weaker or if it just remembered how to hurt, but it shows up late usually when I realize I’ve been “almost done” for hours.

Sometimes my legs shake a bit when I stand up. Not every time. Just enough to feel off.

And small things feel heavier than they should.

Not actually heavy...just harder than they used to be.

And then there’s the café.

The one I keep going back to without thinking about it.

Lately, when I’m standing there waiting but slightly leaned, shifting my weight in that way I pretend isn’t discomfort...they sometimes just carry the tray for me.

No comment. No pause. Just… they do it.

And I don’t stop them.

That’s the part that sticks.

Because I don’t need it. Not really. I can carry my own coffee. There’s no clear line I’ve crossed where this becomes necessary.

But I don’t resist it either.

I just follow them to the table like it’s normal.

There was a time I would’ve corrected it. Taken the tray back. Made a point, but important of being fine.

Now I don’t even think about it.

Even the weather feels like it’s doing something similar.

It’s supposed to be summer. There’s that expectation light, warmth, something easier. But instead it keeps shifting. Cold mornings, sudden heat, then back to grey again. Like it can’t settle on what it’s supposed to be.

Which feels familiar.

Because nothing is wrong, exactly.

From the outside, everything lines up. There’s a job. There’s progress. I’m learning something I actually enjoy.

But inside it all feels… level.

Like everything takes effort and nothing really stands out from anything else.

And somewhere in the background of all this, Caribbean Blue keeps playing.

Soft. Distant. Almost like it’s not fully part of the same space.

It sounds like openness. Like movement. Like nothing is urgent.

Which is strange, because I’m usually listening to it while moving between things that are.

Reading sentences I like but can’t absorb. Watching reports refresh on a schedule I didn’t choose. Letting someone else carry something I could carry myself.

The song feels like floating.

Everything else feels like staying in place.

Maybe that’s why I keep playing it.

Not because it matches anything

but because it doesn’t.

Because for a few minutes, it makes it feel like things could be different.

But the song loops.

And I’m still here.

Still functioning. Still progressing. Still technically present.

Das ist Lieben, Ja?