I want to talk about my emptiness. That feeling when you are completely drained from feeling so damned. I feel empty so often that I wonder how I carry on day to day loving people and trying to love life. I wonder to myself, where does the love even come from. I feel so empty of everything all the time, yet I somehow find it in my heart to love other people. I put others needs and feelings before my own, even when I am feeling empty. 

This emptiness leaves me feeling numb in a way, like I am on autopilot and my body is taking over when what I really want to do is let go and fall further into it. These are the days that I continue because I know that I have to. It is always a struggle, but somehow I make it. I have so many people depending on me that I have to force myself to keep moving, to get up and live my life. I don’t do it for me, I do it for them. 

Encouraging words come to me from family, friends, co-workers, and students. Words of love and words of motivation. I don’t feel them or take them in the way that they are meant, I accept them as a reason to not let everyone down. These people love me, they care so very much, I want them to think that they are helping. I want them to think that their motivational message has motivated me to feel better, to do better. What is really happening is that I am doing what I think they want to see me doing as a way to appease them. I’m not feeling the motivation, I am simply going through the motions to give them the peace of mind that I am okay.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not doing it to be fake, I just don’t want everyone to worry about me. I don’t want to be a burden for anyone. I try sometimes. I try to use those motivational messages and words of love and hope to feel better. I want the emptiness to go away just as much as anyone, but it simply stays. I put on a brave face, a smile that lights up the room, and I pretend to be okay. I pretend to be full of life and truly happy.

But how do you fill your soul with joy when the emptiness has locked the gates and boarded up all the windows? You don’t. You stay empty until you are not empty anymore.