An Empty Room Inside My Chest

Life has started to feel like a long stretch of gray, the kind where days bleed into each other and you stop caring about where one ends and the next begins. I wake up because my body knows how to wake up, not because I have some burning reason to. I eat because I’m supposed to, not because I’m hungry. I move through the world like I’m watching from behind a pane of glass—aware of everything, connected to nothing.

Every morning is the same fight with myself. Not the kind of fight that’s loud and cinematic, but the quiet one where you stare at the ceiling, thinking, Why bother? And then you get up anyway, not because you found a reason, but because the machine of routine dragged you to your feet.

I tell myself I’m fine, but that’s just because it’s easier than explaining the truth—this constant, gnawing emptiness. I wish I could say I’ve found meaning in a hobby, in work, in some grand purpose. But the truth is, I haven’t. My existence is more survival than living.

If there’s anything keeping me tethered here, it’s my family and two friends—Luis and Brian. They’re more than friends, really. They’re brothers in every way that matters. I doubt they realize how deep that runs for me. I’d take a bullet for them without hesitation, and I mean that in the most literal sense. For all my detachment, for all my distance, they are part of the tiny handful of people I’d bleed for. Without them—and without my family—I’m almost certain I wouldn’t still be here.

The thing is, I want connection. I crave it in a way I don’t admit out loud. But I’m terrified of being open, of being vulnerable. Vulnerability is messy. It’s dangerous. It leaves you exposed in a world that’s already too sharp and too cold. So instead, I put the weight into these blogs—silent conversations with myself that no one else needs to hear.

Maybe one day I’ll have the courage to let someone read them. Maybe one day I’ll let someone see me without all the armor. But for now, these words are my mirror, my reminder of who I am and who I might want to become—if I can ever find the reason to try.