disconnected: journal entries in a new world

The people in the mirror are strangers, but a distant memory, an empty shell of an old life, one I no longer know, one I no longer live. 

I spent nights staring at her, her face in the mirror, hoping that one day she'll become clearer, one day she'll seem more familiar. But as the hours pass, she never does, she only becomes more blurred, an enigma. 

These days the days go by so slowly, yet so fast at the same time. Hours drag on endlessly, yet suddenly a week has ended and another one begins. There's never enough time, yet there's also too much of it. 

Emotions feel unnatural, perhaps even non-existent. Is it possible to even feel anymore? Some days it just feels like I am hollow inside, numb to everything. Other days the emptiness is overwhelming, a surging sense of loneliness and disconnect, each conversation lacking depth, passion or even any desire to keep talking. 

Once the silence was comforting, a pleasant break from the surging outside world. Yet, now it's just a reminder of being alone, the pause in each conversation a tell that there's no intent or intensity, just two strangers continuing to pretend they know each other. 

My body feels like a stranger's, I don't even look at her anymore. What's the point, a glance isn't going to change appearance. 

You continue to move, continue to work, to bow down to capitalism for productivity dictates progress and achievement in our society. We continue to do, convince ourselves that maybe some of it will make us feel normal again. But it's been months, and the sensation of normal is too difficult to even remember. 

Maybe if I could just have a week I think, just a week to run away from it all, a week pause to hide under the covers and close my eyes. But a week of nothing does nothing. There's that capitalist mindset again. 

We don't know what to feel, we don't even know what to do. We just live every action with the hopes that it is right, with failure always looming underneath. Maybe this is how it always is, but a flipped world doesn't make it any easier. Overnight changes and a constant uncertainty just leaves you with an uneasy stomach, bringing back the anxious nail biting and midnight breakdowns, for reasons you couldn't even explain. 

People have left, its been a month and you hadn't even realised words had gone unspoken. Right or wrong who knows anymore, if only people could tell you how to feel. It's easier to just let them, it's easier to accept their opinion than try to figure out your own. Nobody tells you how to do that. It's just a bunch of 'listen to your heart' bullshit. Not helpful when your heart doesn't know how to talk. 

"or maybe you just don't know how to listen," she whispers. 

Some days are good, and some are bad. There's days in between but they don't feel like anything anymore, just hours that slip through your fingers as if it were sand on a beach. Some days start good, pushed with determination for better, endorphins running. Yet with a single comment, a meaningless statement that was once easily brushed off, you feel the weight of it all heave back onto your shoulders and the grey clouds appear over your head. 

I feel blessed to be able to see my friends, to walk the streets and visit restaurants. Whilst it's different, in a world where so many are confined to the insides of their homes, praying each day for health and safety, the essence of being able to have just a little bit of freedom feels joyous. So you can understand why it feels wrong, perhaps bridging on the edge of blinded privilege to complain about sad emotions, about feeling out of place, different, non existent. 

Young people continue to take their own lives, black people continue to not get justice and our world is quite literally at boiling point. Our society has so many issues and even considering that can make your sad headspace feel irrelevant. But, you live there, you live with yourself so where does the issue of disconnect come on the list of priorities? 

Nothing feels normal anymore. I don't know who I am and what I feel. Surrounded by people, and at times I've never felt more alone. Maybe it's this 'post-pandemic' world, the exhaustion of always having to be in flight or fight mode, or just the sheer amount of changes I've taken on board the past few months. Or perhaps it's just the glorious part of being on the cusp of your twenties.

Somehow though, or I like to convince myself in order to feel better, I don't think I am alone. When the grey clouds come down or the duvet cover cocoon isn't doing it, sometimes I think about a girl across the oceans, sitting in her bed feeling the exact same thing, feeling as disconnected and confused as me. So if thats you, here it is. I can't offer any help or words of guidance, only perhaps the reassuring prospect that someone else feels a bit of what you do, and maybe, just maybe, feeling not normal is normal right now. 

O