Vacancy

Lately I have had a hard time investing any amount of emotional energy or feeling into the things around me. Old pictures, mementos, carefully collected gorgeous things, treasured family heirlooms, all feel like nothing. I imagine that they should invoke in me a sense of wonder, or sentiment, or flood me with memories of good times, like once they did, but they do not. I feel nothing. I am vacant.

I dug out a porcelain coffee and silver tea service yesterday, both handed down to me from generations past. And as I sat staring at them, in all of their hideously antiquated glory, all I could think was 'why do I even have these.' I can't decide if I once loved them because of the respect and love I had for those who gave them to me, if it is in fact those feelings themselves that have faded leaving these artifacts feeling more like emotional litter on the side of the freeway of my life. It isn't so much that I feel weighed down by all of this stuff, as I have plenty of room in which to house it. Perhaps it is rather that I have not the spare emotional energy to invest in them, in anything. Lots of physical space, but no spiritual room.

Even my relationships with many of my family and friends seem to have fallen by the wayside. I know that I do care a great deal about them, that they have a place, a role, a contribution to make to my life, but I simply cannot muster the energy to keep in contact. It is more than having nothing to say, though that too plays a significant role of late, but I guess I am still in this place, this vacant, empty place. I have no emotional or spiritual fuel left to burn. I am running on empty. It amazes me that even as time passes, I still am not replenished. I have not found anything with which to feed my spirit, to fuel my life, my interactions, relationships, emotional investments. I am exhausted even writing this. I just don't know what to do. I am not sad. I am empty. I feel nothing. Clearly time does not heal everything. Time is not what I need. But what is? Where do I go from here? Where will I find the source of my spiritual spring?