Sometimes I Feel Like A Ghost That Everyone Can See

I’ve been walking around with a smile on my face. One that makes me look like everything is okay. One that makes people accept “I’m good” as a response and not question my well-being any further. I put on a smile and a tough exterior. I act like nothing phases me, like I can handle what’s being thrown at me and I don’t let anything destroy me.

But I feel alone. I feel terribly and desperately alone, others are around, but not in a way I need. No one can see the pain inside of me. It’s gnawing at me and it just feels like it’s getting worse day by day. I am alive, but I don’t feel like living. I do not feel important or needed. I do not feel happy or good, but I am here, and I am alive.

I feel like if I slipped off no one would notice I’m gone. I could just pack another bag and leave, and no one would miss me. I think about leaving from time to time, because it’s something I’m good at.

I walk around each day with an empty heart, missing all the things I used to love. Missing all the good relationships I used to have that are now lost somewhere in my past.

People can see me, I’m not invisible. They just assume I’m okay because they can see me walking by on the street, they can see me drive past singing in the car and they can see me conversing with others. Everything looks normal.

But what they can’t see is all the painful thoughts racing through my head as I’m calmly walking by. What they can’t see is what song is playing on my iPhone. They can’t hear the lyrics to the heartbreak song I’m singing and they can’t hear the pain in my voice I’m letting out. What they can’t see is how desperately I want someone, anyone, to just ask me how I’m doing. Not in a way to be polite or make small talk, I want the person I’m conversing with to ask me how I am, how I really am. But it never happens.

So I keep it to myself. I write it down. I thinking of everything that’s wrong while I toss and turn trying to convince my brain to shut off and go to sleep.

Then I wake up and do it again.

There comes a time where you feel alone, so alone, that it doesn’t even matter how many people you have around you because the emptiness is seeping out from within.

You’d rather be alone in the comfort of your own room because at least that way you can be comforted by silence and not the endless ringing of meaningless conversation that don’t include you or hold your interest enough to join in.

It comes out of nowhere, sometimes, but I feel nothing. I feel empty, and sad, and lonely, and somehow I feel everything and nothing all at once. I can’t control it. I can’t stop it. I just accept it.

I make comfort in the numbness I’m experiencing and after awhile it feels normal.

The moments of feeling completely alone makes me feel like I don’t exist, like I’m a ghost that everyone can see, but no one cares enough to be worried about because everything on the outside always looks okay.

But what no one can see is what’s happening on the inside. That’s where all the damage occurs.