CHAPTER 3

There is a kind of loneliness that isn't just about being alone. It's not the quiet of an empty room or the silence after a conversation ends. It's the feeling of moving through life unseen, of watching love bloom all around you while it never quite reaches your hands. Not because you've done something wrong, not because you've pushed it away, but simply because something in you does not seem to invite it.

People speak of love as if it's inevitable, a universal truth that finds everyone in time. But I've come to understand that this isn't true. Love is not guaranteed. Some of us stand on the outside of it, watching, waiting, but never feeling it reach for us.

I don't know if it's something in me that keeps love at a distance. Maybe I am too quiet, too strange, too difficult to understand. Maybe people see something in me that makes them hesitate, makes them step back instead of forward. I don't know what it is, only that it happens again and again.

I have never been someone who lingers in another's thoughts. Never the first choice, never the one who is missed in a way that aches. People are kind, sometimes even warm, but there is a limit to it, a barrier I have never been able to cross. I am spoken to, but not reached for. I am tolerated, but never needed.

This kind of loneliness doesn't come as a single, sharp pain. It settles in over time, a quiet weight pressing down little by little. It's not just one rejection, not just one heartbreak—it's the slow realization that love isn't waiting for me, that it was never meant to be mine at all.

I wonder sometimes if I was meant to be an observer rather than a part of it. If I was made to watch love exist in others but never feel it myself. The world does not push me away with cruelty—it simply does not pull me in. I exist, but I do not belong to anyone. Not as family, not as a friend who is truly held close, not as anything more.

Some people are woven into the lives of others in a way that is unshakable. If they were to disappear, they would leave behind a space no one else could fill. But I have begun to understand that if I were to vanish, the world would remain unchanged. No part of it would be torn, no heart would carry my absence as an ache that never fades.

And if love is what makes life vivid, what gives it warmth and meaning, then what does it mean to live without it? Am I something less than whole? Or am I simply proof that love is not meant for all?

People say love finds everyone eventually. That it is as natural as breathing, as certain as the turning of the seasons. But I have lived long enough to know that this is not true. Some of us stand outside of it, watching it exist for others while knowing, deep down, that it will never come for us.

There is something in me I cannot change that sets me apart. I have seen it in the way people hesitate, in the way their hands never quite reach, in the way their voices soften with politeness but never with warmth. I am not rejected outright—that would at least be something. Instead, I am acknowledged but never needed. Never loved in the way that matters.

I used to believe this would change. That love would come in time, that all I had to do was wait for the right people to see me, to understand me. I told myself that everyone feels this way at some point, that no one is truly alone forever. But as the years have passed, I have seen the truth more clearly. This is not a phase. This is not temporary. This is simply the way I exist in the world.

Maybe I am too strange. Maybe I do not express myself in the right way, or maybe I lack something essential, something that allows people to connect. I have tried to fix it, to soften myself, to reshape my edges to fit those around me. But no matter how much I change, the distance remains.

So I go on, because there is nothing else to do. I wake up, I move through the world, I exist. But I do not expect love anymore. I do not believe it will find me. It is not bitterness that fills me, not anger, not resentment—just acceptance.

There is something strange about feeling myself sink while looking steady on the outside. It's a contradiction, an illusion the world easily believes because it is easier to accept what is visible than to ask about what is hidden. Like a ship gliding across the water, I seem fine—intact, functional, even content. But beneath the surface, cracks spread, the weight grows, and slowly, silently, I start to sink. Not all at once. There is no dramatic struggle, no outward sign that I am going under. It is gradual, a descent so subtle that even I don't realize how far down I have gone until the light above me feels impossibly distant.

Sinking within myself feels like getting lost in my own thoughts, emotions, and doubts. It's a quiet erosion, where every step forward feels like falling deeper instead of moving ahead. There is no obvious distress, no desperate gasping for air. Instead, I unravel quietly, holding it all together with a practiced smile and the familiar words, "I'm fine." The more convincing my mask, the less likely anyone is to see what lies beneath.

The worst part is the silence. No one notices someone who looks like they're standing upright. The more I function normally, the less likely anyone is to see the darkness creeping in. I move through the world as though I belong, as though I am present, but I am somewhere else entirely. Trapped inside myself, screaming in a soundproof room, watching people pass by without ever turning their heads. Sinking means watching as the weight pulls me down while I pretend I'm still floating, knowing that no one is coming to save me—not because they don't care, but because they don't know.

This weight is made up of so many things—the thoughts I can't untangle, the feelings I can't name, the exhaustion of existing in a space where I feel like a stranger even to myself. It's realizing I can be surrounded by people and still feel alone—not because they are absent, but because something keeps me from truly connecting. I watch laughter ripple through a room and wonder why it doesn't reach me the same way. I hear words meant to comfort but feel their hollowness—not because they aren't sincere, but because something in me is unable to absorb them.

And yet, there's a strange comfort in this sinking. It feels familiar. In some ways, it feels like the most honest part of me, untouched by the performance of everyday life. Admitting that I'm sinking means admitting that I have depths no one else can see. Maybe there is relief in disappearing, in slipping beneath the waves and letting go. 

Still, I wonder—can I sink without drowning? Can I exist in this state without being consumed by it? im learning to breathe underwater.

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