ABOUT

I was born in 1998. I'm 27 now. No one ever sat me down and taught me how to be a real person. I wake up at the same time every night - 2:47 AM - and check my phone to make sure I'm still here. During work meetings, I sometimes dig my fingernails into my palm just to feel something real. My coworkers think I'm taking notes, but I'm just writing the same word over and over again.

My apartment is always messy. Dirty dishes pile up in the sink until I end up eating cereal from coffee mugs. I order the same takeout most nights because cooking feels like too much work. My job pays well, but I can't remember what I did yesterday. All my workdays blur together in that gray office with its gray carpet and gray people. I make spreadsheets no one reads. I write emails that don't matter. I sit in meetings where everyone pretends to care.

I hate how I fake-smile during morning video calls with yesterday's coffee stain on my shirt, carefully hidden below what the camera can see. I hate how I use phrases like “let's circle back on that” and “we should sync offline.” I hate that I'm good at this meaningless job. My last review said “Exceeds High Bar” but I'm just going through motions monkeys could do.

The office bathroom has those awful fluorescent lights that make everyone look sick. I stare at myself in the mirror and don't recognize who I see. Who is this person in business clothes with empty eyes? How did I become this? Some days I hide in a bathroom stall for 27 minutes, just scrolling on my phone because it feels better than sitting at my desk pretending to work.

My mom thinks I'm doing great. I've never told her that I drink alcohol in my car during lunch breaks. She brags about me to our extended family all the time. “So proud of ////// working at //////!” I don't have the heart to tell her I hate every minute of it. That I'm not the successful person she thinks I am. That most days I feel like I'm watching myself from a distance, just going through the motions.

At work, people know me as organized. Someone who meets deadlines and never complains. No one sees me at 1 AM organizing my sock drawer by color because it's the only thing in my life I can control. No one sees me opening and closing the same apps on my phone for hours because I can't make even simple decisions anymore.

Dating apps are useless to me now. I match with women who talk about their hobbies like I should care. I ghost them after a couple messages because I can't stand the thought of sitting across from another empty person making small talk about nothing. My profile picture is from 2021 - the last time I remember feeling like myself. Before everything changed.

My car is a mess. I haven't cleaned it in eight months. There are fast food receipts everywhere - proof of all the meals I've eaten alone. Some days I sit in the parking garage for a long time before I can make myself go into the office. Just staring at nothing, dreading the badge scan, the elevator small talk, the sound of keyboards.

I bought a plant last month thinking it might help. It's already dying. I keep forgetting to water it, just like I keep forgetting to call back my only real friend from back then. Just like I keep forgetting what I wanted to be before I ended up here. I write these stories because I need proof that I exist outside my job. Because spreadsheets and work messages and performance reviews aren't enough. Because I need to know if other people feel this empty too.

For seeing these words I can't say out loud. I know some of you feel this same emptiness, this quiet desperation from morning alarm to late-night doomscrolling. We're all playing parts in lives we never chose. But I'm starting to think that just naming this emptiness is its own kind of rebellion. A small crack in the wall. Maybe that's where light gets in. Maybe that's where we start.