Where Have I Been?

Where have I been the past three years?  Tonight, lying in Ellie's bed while she "wooled" (ie loved all over) me, I was struck by a sudden sensation of vertigo.  I remember clearly her first two years, my sweet baby growing into a happy and loving toddler.  Now, here, cuddling and wrestling with me, is a young girl.  The time between her first two years and here, tonight, is a blur.  Mostly a dark blur.  Have I been that depressed, for that long?  Am I only now getting my feet back under me and my head in order?  Where did the past three years go?  I remember bits and snatches if I focus and try, but the last three years are not the cohesive, flowing memory of her first two years.

I feel like Rip Van Winkle, waking up in a world that is both familiar and strange.  It's the same feeling that you get when you're driving down a road you've driven a hundred times before and you suddenly notice something that your eyes have always glided past - a barn set back in the middle of a field, the name of a little store, the color and detail of a house that never before caught your attention - and, just as suddenly, a tendril of fear.  You don't know where you are on this road you've driven over and over.  You've been startled out of your driving reverie.  This thing that you've unexpectedly noticed is not tied in your mind to any other landmark on your previously familiar journey.  You are lost, until you find your next usually noticed point - the stoplight, the gas station, the big blue house on the corner - and relief washes over you.  Now you know where you are.

But I don't know where I am, or where this road will lead.  I've been on autopilot, and tonight I suddenly realized that I've taken too much for granted.  I haven't looked around.  I haven't made landmarks.  I've been lost.

Now I know I was lost, though, which is an improvement.