Far Away

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again.

These words arrive in my head to the tune of an old familiar song, one I have played on repeat on many occasions.

That heaviness has returned, and everything feels unreal. I move through my days in a fog, like I am walking in a dream, or watching life through a screen.

Here I am again. I have been holding everything together by staying in constant motion. Always moving, always working, busying myself so nothing I have worked so hard to build falls apart. Duties, bills, hopes, dreams, goals, all tangled together and overshadowed by grief and illness.

Grief changes the shape of time. Chronic illness changes the weight of effort. My nervous system does not rebound the way it once did. I cannot live at the same speed I used to and expect to stay whole.

So I am forced to slow down, even when I don’t want to.

Today, slowing down does not feel gentle. It feels heavy, like moving through thick air, like every thought and sound is just slightly too far away to reach. My head throbs and I try desperately to keep up with the needs at hand and a world that will not slow down for me.

There is a shadow over everything again. Thankfully not enough to cloud my vision completely. I can still see my life. I still love my people. I still care about what we have built together. But it feels distant, like I am watching it instead of living it, like I am behind glass.

This is not the first time this darkness has known my name. It finds me in seasons like this, when grief has not finished speaking and my body has already said too much. It does not arrive loudly. It settles. It blurs the edges. It makes ordinary things feel fragile and far away.

I go through the motions. I work. I care. I show up. But inside there is that familiar ache, that existential exhaustion. I am not hopeless, but I am tired in a deeper way. Tired of pretending everything feels solid when it does not. Tired of translating this fog into words that make other people comfortable.

“How are you?”
“Good.”
“You doing okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. You know, just hangin’ in there.”

The words come out automatically, smooth and practiced. They are easier than explaining the weight, the distance, the fog. Easier than watching someone grow uncomfortable with a truth they did not actually ask to hear. So I offer the version of myself that fits into small talk, and I carry the rest quietly.

Some days, loving my life does not mean enjoying it or finding it easy. It means choosing to stay inside it even when it feels unreal, even when it feels like I am carrying it instead of standing in it.

But now, after four decades of being alive, at least I know this heaviness does not mean I am failing. It means something in me is still grieving, still healing, still trying to catch up to what has already happened.

I am not chasing big progress today. I am just focusing on not disappearing from myself. Moving slower. Getting done what I can. Letting the shadow exist without letting it decide who I am.

Even here, even like this, I am still in my life, even if today, this week, this month, it feels like I am watching it from far away.