Sometimes I feel like I’m packed in cotton. I see what is happening  around me, but I don’t feel very connected to anything. Nothing––good or bad––comes through at its usual intensity.

I remain comfortable enough, but my life is muted and not very interesting. There is no magic and without magic life seems . . . blah.

I am not normally a Sad Sack. My life has been filled with magic: childhood magic, teenage magic, young-adult magic, marriage magic, child-rearing magic, travel magic.

Not all of the magic was pleasant. I wouldn’t wish teen-agedom on anyone. I’ve been divorced. I’ve struggled at work.

But in both pleasure and pain I knew I was alive to the events of my life; life had intensity.

Now I find that things are just . . . ho-hum. I feel like a fly caught in amber. I can’t experience the world outside clearly as the amber slowly hardens around me.

I have resolved most “issues” from my past––I rarely dwell on the unpleasant aspects of my life that used to plague me. I hope, however, that I remember that this “amber” feeling has happened before and that it is never permanent.

Through the good, the bad, and the ugly, I was always able to reconnect with the magic in life; not always right away, but I have always found it. Now, just like before, I remain cottony-connected until I find my magical life again.

I know what magic feels like. Today, for whatever reason, it is just out of reach––but not forever.