Have you ever felt like you’re alive, but not really living? Like you’re stuck between the past and the present, watching life move on without you?
There are days when everything feels off, like I’m floating through life without really being present. I feel lost. Alone. Like nothing makes sense anymore.
Sometimes, I even question if I really love anything. And I wonder: why do I feel nothing and everything all at once? Why is my mind just… blank and restless at the same time?
Some days, I feel like eating forever, stuffing myself with anything that might fill this hollow space inside me. Other days, I just want to walk endlessly, as if my feet could take me somewhere that makes sense.
When I step into a crowded place, I don’t really see the crowd. It’s like I can feel the emptiness underneath it all, like I’m watching a ghost town dressed up in neon lights.
The mountains make me feel the same way. Eerie. Still. As if time has stopped, yet something unseen lingers. And yet, I still want to be there. Maybe because I understand that silence more than I understand the noise of daily life.
Family and cousins try to support me (touchwood). They take me out, invite me to stay as long as I want. They don’t say it outright, but I know they worry. I see it in the way my mom asks if I’ve eaten, in the way my cousin insists on taking me out for snacks even when I don’t feel like talking. But it doesn’t seem fair. They have their own lives. I shouldn’t be clinging to them. And yet, when I do stay with them, I dread leaving. It’s like I slip into another time, and I don’t want to come back.
When I visit my cousin’s house, it takes me straight back to childhood. I can still hear our giggles, our fights in the lane. I can see our younger selves running barefoot, yelling over silly things that felt like the end of the world back then. The kids in the family don’t feel like a next generation to me; I see them as my age. That’s how much I’m not in the present. And when I say that, I’m only 0.01% exaggerating, because if someone literally shook me or threw water at me, I’d snap back.
The other day, my cousin took me to our childhood snack shop. I loved it, but when she was driving us back, I had this sudden, overwhelming urge to put my head on her lap and just not let her drive.
Just stop. Stop everything. Just for a moment.
Once, I even went back to the government quarters where I grew up, 25 km from my current residence. I don’t know what I was looking for. I wandered through random lanes, alone, at 1 pm, when the streets were empty and the world felt like it had paused. Five lanes. The entire area. At some point, I even thought of walking into my old school, half-expecting to see familiar faces. But it’s been 14 years. Why would I? And yet, some part of me still believes I might.
Sometimes, I feel like time has stopped. Other times, I feel like I’ve been thrown into the past and left there. And then, there are moments when I wonder: was I always like this? Or did I change somewhere along the way?
Maybe I used to live more in the present. Maybe I once felt grounded, attached, certain. I don’t remember when that shifted. But now, it feels like I exist in pieces, one part of me trapped in the past, one part lost in an anxious blur, and the smallest part barely holding on to reality.
I see people around me moving forward, making plans, setting goals, being excited about something as simple as lying in the bed on a weekend. I wish I felt that excitement. I wish I had that kind of clarity. But most days, I just feel like I’m floating. Like I’m watching life happen around me but not really living it.
All of this has come after years of what I guess is the more common kind of anxiety—the tight chest, the racing heart. But now? Now it’s different. My mind doesn’t stop. And most of the time, I don’t even know what I want.
It’s not that I’m sad all the time. It’s just that everything feels… distant. Even when I laugh, even when I talk, even when I smile at people who care about me. There’s always this quiet ache, like my mind is somewhere else. Like I’m waiting for something, but I don’t know what.
And the strangest part? I don’t even know what I’m searching for. Am I looking for a way back to who I used to be? Or am I just hoping that, one day, all of this will finally make sense?
