9.9 Empty hole

It’s not sadness that I feel; it’s exhaustion. I’m searching for someone to love me because I still can’t love myself. I’m searching for a workout challenge to complete because my life feels so incomplete. I’m searching for connections with people who aren’t worth connecting with. It’s the hole inside of me, dying to be filled. An analogy I’ve always referred to is about me running around town trying to collect my pieces—a puzzle piece of me. Now it’s a gaping hole. I’m dyeing my hair back to the old me as if I can revive her. Every day is a struggle to find the mask to cover up this hole I feel. At times, it’s less visible; the wind doesn’t chill my whole body, as if the hole is recovering. Other times, it’s out in the open, where people get to see through me, and I am completely exposed.

Tell me the solution, I beg. Would it be committing to everything my mind desires? Would it be me studying for this one exam I’ve been putting off for two years now, or maybe completing 75 Hard? Would the external fix my internal hole? Or could it just be a blanket waiting to fall off? I’ve asked so many people from their late 40s to early 30s for their perspectives, but the answer is always the same: They have no idea how to live their lives and completely believe everything works out in due time. I can’t wait anymore. I can’t accept their vague “oh, it’ll get better eventually.” I’m starting to cry every single day. The hole is getting bigger, and everything I loved is falling out—therapy, working out, 75 Hard, my hopes and dreams, even wanting to live. Call me dramatic; call me whatever you see fit. To have no idea how to live your life, let alone to have no one who wants to live a life with you, is possibly the worst feeling of all—to have nothing you love, no passion, no drive. Every day I wake up and wonder why. Why am I awake? Why do I get up? What do you have to do so badly that you need to wake up? Why is the sun shining in my face? Why are the birds singing? Why is all I can conjure up? Every day I wake up, I work out, go to work, eat, sleep, repeat. The hole still remains, yet to be filled. My only answer is why. It’s exhausting. I am still searching, and I have no idea why…