It is almost 1 a.m. and everything around me feels heavy.
The silence is not peaceful tonight.
It presses down on my chest like a weight I cannot lift.
There is this strange tension inside me, a tightness that whispers something bad might happen.
I do not even know if it is fear or anxiety anymore. Maybe it is both.
Maybe it is just my mind trying to find someone to talk to in this endless quiet.
I have people around me. Colleagues, friends, familiar faces that greet me.
Yet opening up feels impossible.
I want to scream, maybe even cry, but I cannot.
It is not like this is new.
I have always found comfort in solitude, but tonight my loneliness feels like an empty room with no way out.
They say writing helps, that it can save you when your thoughts get too loud,
so here I am, trying to write myself out of the heaviness.
Work has been a storm lately.
So many faces, new names, small talks that drain more than they give.
As an introvert, every handshake feels rehearsed and every smile feels borrowed.
I keep pretending I am okay, pretending I belong in this fast-moving world that never stops to breathe.
There is this invisible pressure, this need to keep up, to not fall apart.
Because falling apart is not an option when you are supposed to have it together.
I am a grown man. I cannot afford to break.
But I am tired. I am so tired.
There is an ache that keeps pulling me back to my father.
I have been missing him more than usual.
Maybe it is the loneliness, or maybe I just need someone who understood me without words.
He always did.
When I lived alone before, he would call me during my breaks.
Short calls, random check-ins, but they meant everything.
He never made me feel alone.
Now my phone stays silent, and that silence feels like a wound that never heals.
I scroll through old messages sometimes just to see his name again.
I wish I could tell him how much I need him right now.
And then there is Maa.
I wish I could call her, hear her voice, feel that warmth that only mothers carry in their tone.
But time zones are cruel. When I am free, it is already too late there.
Even if I could call, I do not think I would tell her the truth.
She thinks I am strong. The son who never struggles.
The one who always finds a way.
I do not want to ruin that image.
I have worn it too long to take it off now.
So I stay quiet.
I hide the chaos behind small smiles and routine answers.
I miss my girlfriend too.
The love of my life.
The one who made everything feel less complicated just by being there.
Talking to her always felt easy and natural, like she could see straight through me without judgment.
I wish I could tell her how much I miss her, how much I crave that safety, her voice, her arms, her presence.
But I do not.
Maybe because I do not want to seem weak.
Maybe I am afraid she will pull away if I show her too much of my mind.
I overthink it all, like always.
Still, deep down, she is my home. My calm in the chaos.
Sometimes I wonder if moving away was a mistake.
I am chasing something big, success, stability, a better life, but what if I lose everything I love in the process?
What if I fail?
What if one day they all move on, and I am just a distant memory?
That fear eats at me.
I try to silence it, but it always finds its way back.
I have friends here. Good people.
But I still feel out of place.
Like I am standing in a crowded room and no one can see me.
I make jokes, talk about work, laugh at the right times,
but inside I am somewhere else entirely.
It feels like school all over again, surrounded but isolated.
My girlfriend once told me to make friends before I left, to not close myself off.
I tried. I really did.
But belonging does not happen overnight.
Maybe it never really happens for people like me.
And so, here I am.
Writing into the void, wondering if anyone can hear me.
I feel like an astronaut drifting in space, sending signals no one receives.
My words bounce off the walls and return to me unanswered.
Can I please come down?
That line keeps echoing in my head.
Because that is all I want, to come down.
To feel grounded again.
To stop floating in this emptiness that feels endless.
It is strange, isn’t it?
You can be surrounded by people and still feel like no one truly sees you.
You can be miles away from home, chasing your dreams, and still feel like you have lost your way.
Some nights, like this one, it all catches up.
The distance. The pressure. The longing.
And you realize how fragile you really are beneath all that strength you wear.
But maybe this is what being human is.
Drifting, searching, missing, breaking a little, and then finding small reasons to hold on.
Maybe it is okay to not be okay tonight.
Maybe writing this down is my way of sending a small signal out into the universe.
A quiet SOS from my heart.
If anyone is listening out there,
maybe they will understand what I mean when I say
I am not lost, I am just floating.
And someday, I hope I find my way back home.