Paying Attention

Sleep has been difficult lately. Too many thoughts moving at once. Most of them circling a future I didn’t choose, but now have to live inside.

When I look back at what happened, it feels less like a single event and more like a quiet collapse. Decisions made without me that reshaped everything I thought was stable. That sense of security slipping away is still there, lingering. And I think that’s where the anxiety has been coming from.

It’s not just fear of what’s ahead — it’s the feeling of having no clear choices at all. The future feels thin. Even the past sometimes feels unreal, as if I misread it while I was living it.

I don’t know what comes next. Teaching Tai Chi and Kung Fu, perhaps. Small retreats. Maybe a school. These ideas exist, but I don’t yet know how they would sustain a life in any practical sense. They feel meaningful, but fragile.

I keep thinking I should write everything down. Make a list of what I can actually do. See what remains once it’s all laid out. I’m afraid of what that list might show — afraid that time will arrive faster than readiness.

A line I read today stopped me:

“The fall of a single leaf foretells the arrival of autumn.”

It made me wonder whether I’m paying attention to the right things. Whether I’ve been staring too hard at what I can’t control, while missing what’s quietly unfolding in front of me.

The past — all its perceived betrayals and explanations — may be another distraction. A loud one, but still a distraction. Reality is happening somewhere else. Smaller. Quieter.

I do need a plan.
But maybe not a grand one.

Maybe just the next step — taken deliberately, and without trying to see too far ahead.