Dear whoever I used to be,
I keep meaning to write to you, but every time I sit down, I realise I don't know where to address it. You feel like someone who moved out without leaving a forwarding address. I'm doing fine by the way. That's what I tell people. And it's not even a lie, just an incomplete sentence.
I go to classes. I show up to clubs. I sit in meetings and pretend I still recognise the person speaking when it's my turn. I got the internship, the one that's supposed to mean something, the one that proves I'm not wasting my time. Family seems relieved when I mention it. Friends seem relieved when I mention it. Friends nod approvingly. I nod too. Everyone looks convinced that I'm becoming someone. I wish I felt it.
Do you remember when things used to reach us? When writing wasn't a task but a reflex. Something that spilled out because it had nowhere else to go? Now I stare at a blank pages like they're waiting for a version of me that hasn't shown up in months. When I do write, it feels like an imitation. Like I'm copying my own handwriting. Clubs used to feel like curiosity. Now they feel like attendance. Friends used to feel like warmth. Now they feel like maintenance. Family asks how I'm doing, and I give them the version that keeps the conversation short. I don't want to scare them. I don't even know what I'd say if I tried.
I think about Arjuna sometimes standing on the battlefield, bow in hand, realising that everyone in front of him expects violence, expects certainty, expects him to know why this all matters. He doesn’t forget how to fight. He forgets how to want to. That’s the part no one warns you about. Burnout doesn’t knock you down. It teaches you how to keep moving without being present. My body has learned the choreography of my life perfectly. Wake up. Show up. Perform. Smile when required. Deliver when needed. I watch from somewhere behind my own eyes, impressed and ashamed at how well it’s all working. I didn’t lose you in one moment. I lost you gradually, responsibly, with everyone’s approval.
There’s a specific kind of shame in this. Not the shame of failing I could explain that. This is the shame of succeeding while feeling nothing. Of knowing that if I said this out loud, people would tell me to be grateful. And they’d be right. And that would somehow make it worse. So I call this growing up. I tell myself numbness is maturity. That distance is discipline. That losing emotional touch is the cost of becoming “serious.” But sometimes, late at night, I wonder if growing up is just the story we tell ourselves so we don’t have to grieve who we left behind. I don’t know if you’re gone or just quiet. I don’t know if I’m supposed to fight through this or drop the bow for a while and admit that something in me is tired in a way sleep won’t fix. All I know is that I miss you, the version of me that felt too much, cared too hard, wrote like it mattered because it did.
If you’re still here, I hope you forgive me for putting you in the backseat. I’m trying to remember how to let you drive again.
— Me
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