🌀 Random Reflections: The Day I remembered I was alive. And the Quiet Realization That Brought Me Back.

Eric’s Corner
Wednesday-August-6-2025

🌀 Random Reflections: The Day I remembered I was alive. And the Quiet Realization That Brought Me Back.

There are days I move like a shadow wearing skin.
Doing what I do.
Checking the boxes.
Answering the messages.
Feeding the machine.
Being “fine.”

You know those days.
The ones where you stare at the fridge,
Or the phone,
Or the traffic light,
And you’re not really there.
Not really anywhere.

Somewhere along the spiral,
You forget something crucial.

Not your password.
Not your appointment.
Not your coffee on the roof of the car.(Damn it! Not again)

No, something deeper.

You forget
That you’re alive.

Not metaphorically.
Not spiritually.
Not in the “live your best life” kind of way.

I mean you forget that you are a living being.
Right now.
Breathing.
Sensing.
Spinning through space on a blue planet
With a beating heart and a nervous system
And soft skin and sharp thoughts.

You forget
That the you inside you
Is still here.

And when that forgetting happens,
Life becomes flat.
Everything loses taste.
Even the things you used to love
Feel like choices dressed up as chores.

You start existing instead of being.
Reacting instead of noticing.
You scroll more.
You sigh more.
You say “whatever” to things you once cared about.

And slowly, quietly,
You become a zombie with a schedule.

It doesn’t happen all at once.
It happens in emails.
In errands.
In the dull glaze of fluorescent lights.
In performative conversations where nobody is really listening.
In routines that stretch too long without meaning.

One morning you wake up and realize
You’ve been “getting through it”
For weeks.

And you don’t even remember
What “it” is.

This forgetting
It’s not your fault.
It’s what the world trains you to do.

Forget your wonder.
Forget your body.
Forget your breath.

Remember your to-do list.
Remember your deadlines.
Remember what everyone else is doing better than you.

The modern world doesn’t reward being alive.
It rewards being productive.
Being digestible.
Being busy.

But not being here.

Here’s the quiet tragedy:
You can’t feel alive
If you’re only performing life.

And here’s the hope:
The remembering doesn’t take much.

Not a vacation.
Not a breakthrough.
Not a reinvention.

Just a pause.
Just one breath
That you actually notice.

The day I remembered I was alive
Was the day I noticed a leaf dancing on the sidewalk.
That’s it.

A little leaf.
Spinning in a breeze
I hadn’t realized was touching my skin.

And for a moment, I felt it
Not the leaf, but me.

I felt my own weight.
My own stillness.
The strangeness of having a body.
The miracle of simply being here.

And then I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
But because I’d been gone so long
From the very life I was living.

So now, I try to remember more often.

Not with alarms or apps or affirmations.
Just with small, human things.

Warm water on my hands.
A slow blink.
The sound of wind through something that bends.

Sometimes I put my hand on my chest
And feel for my heartbeat.
Not to count it.
Just to say,
“Hey… I’m still in here.”

And that’s enough.

If you’re reading this
And realizing you forgot too
That’s okay.
You’re here now.

Touch something real.
Let your feet feel the floor.
Let your eyes land on something
Without judging it or naming it.

Take one breath
That’s just for you.

You don’t have to fix your life today.
You just have to come back to it.

Come back to you.

Because you’re alive,
And that’s not just a fact.

It’s a miracle.

You were never meant to be a machine. You were meant to feel the wind, laugh from your belly, cry when it hurts, and come back when you forget. And you can. Right now.

Thank you for turning,
Eric
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