10/11/2024
There are days when I wake up, and it feels like I'm not quite myself. The world around me continues on, people moving, talking, living their lives, but I am stuck in a place that doesn’t seem real, or at least not the way I thought life should feel. Every day begins the same, with the buzz of an alarm pulling me from a dreamless sleep. I drag myself out of bed, my body moving through the motions of getting ready for work. But it’s like I’m living on autopilot, just going through the steps without really being there. I don’t feel the joy or sense of purpose I expected to have at this stage in life. Instead, I feel adrift.
Workdays are filled with routine and repetition, the hours slipping by without meaning. I don’t take pleasure in the tasks I perform or in the interactions I have. Instead, everything feels like a checklist I’m ticking off to get through the day, each item crossed off just to move me closer to an empty evening. When the workday ends, I return home to a quiet space where I can sit with my thoughts, but they don’t comfort me. It’s as if I’m a stranger to myself. I feel disconnected, not just from others, but from the person I thought I would become.
Even on my days off, the feeling doesn’t fade. There is no rush to go out, no excitement for something new. Instead, I wake up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, the silence pressing in around me. In those moments, when everyone else is asleep, I feel more alone than ever. The stillness of the world seems to amplify my isolation. I don’t know who to talk to, or if talking would even help. I often think of reaching out to someone, but the effort feels futile, like there’s no real connection to be had. I can’t seem to escape the quiet, the emptiness.
It isn’t that I don’t want to live a fulfilling life—it’s that I don’t know how. The life I dreamed of, the one where I was living with purpose, surrounded by people, adventures, and the excitement of the future, seems so far away. The life I live now doesn’t match the vision I once had. I see others around me moving forward, making plans, taking risks, finding joy in simple moments, and I wonder how they got there. It feels like I’ve missed something, like I’ve been stuck in a loop, replaying the same days, the same moments, without moving forward.
Sometimes, I feel like a hermit, not by choice but by circumstance. I avoid social gatherings, not because I don’t want to connect, but because the idea of forcing myself into those spaces feels overwhelming. It’s as though I’ve built a wall around myself without even realizing it, and now, I don’t know how to take it down. The world feels vast, but I feel small in it—trapped in a place where nothing changes, where I am both present and absent at the same time.
I watch others post pictures of their lives, of the things they are doing, the people they are seeing, and the memories they are making. It stirs something inside me—both longing and guilt. I long for that kind of connection, but I feel guilty for not being able to achieve it. It’s like watching life pass by from a distance, knowing that I should be out there, living it, but not knowing how to get to that point.
This isn’t how I imagined things would turn out. I wanted to be someone who wakes up excited for the day ahead, who embraces new experiences, who laughs and shares moments with friends. But instead, I feel disconnected, like I’m living in a half-state, always waiting for something to change, but not knowing how or when it will. It’s a quiet kind of pain, one that isn’t always visible on the surface, but it’s there, beneath everything I do.
I don’t have answers, and I don’t know when or if things will change. But I do know this: I want to feel like myself again. I want to wake up with a sense of purpose, to not dread the passing hours, and to find the connection that seems to elude me. It might take time, and it might take effort, but I hope that one day, I will find my way out of this isolation. I hope that one day, I’ll look back and see that this feeling was just a moment—a difficult, lonely moment—but only one part of a life I have yet to fully live. Until then, I’ll continue to search for the way back to myself.
