Moonchild

I wake up with the same dull ache thrumming in my chest. I slept the required hours, checked the boxes, but the tiredness is older than last night. It lives under my skin, in the small hollow between my ribs, and it colors the world a shade paler. I can see it on my face in the mirror: the faint hollows beneath my eyes, the smile practiced so many times it’s almost authentic. My tasks become lists that gather dust: the things that once energized me now demand a concentration I no longer possess.

The voices around me say so.

“You’re only getting worse.”
“You used to be so much better before.”

“You’re not even trying.”

“Are you worth the time and money?”

“Stop being lazy.”

They are not separate anymore; they fold into one single, insistent chant, and sometimes I can’t tell whether I am listening to them or to myself. They all form one question.

“Am I enough?”

And then the guilt settles in. Because I’m fortunate. I have a good home, education, food, and caring parents who can be harsh (for my own good, they say; I’d like to believe them). So why can’t it get better? I was called a prodigy once; my name carried small fireworks at school assemblies. Why does that light feel like a memory? Why does the applause feel like someone else’s? Am I spoiled for wanting less ache and more sense? Did I let my perceived self-importance blind me so much that I couldn’t see reality settling in? SO many questions, but the hourglass of time doesn’t stop to answer. So I pass my days with a sadness that permeates my being. Changing the things I enjoy to things I don’t have the energy to do anymore. The violin sits collecting dust in the back of my room. The instrument that used to be picked up every day now lies lonely and heartbroken just like me. I can’t express the guilt that plagues my every waking second because of it. My parents had expectations for me. I’ve played for seven years, and I’ve made nothing out of myself. The glances that barely conceal the disappointment that they want to shield me from sometimes hurt more than the fact that I don’t have the energy to do the thing I used to rush home to do.

The headaches get worse every day. A sort of physical pain to accompany the emotional weight. Even when I don’t realize it’s here, all I have to do is touch my temple, and the dull ache permeates my entire being. I don’t know why it worsens with each day. It connects with my heart, I think. It is as if the tears I refuse to cry have nowhere else to go, so they gather behind my eyes and press against the bone. My heart is heavy, locked in that silent room, and my body is trying to speak the language my voice rejects. Every pulse in my temple is a reminder of the grief I am hoarding, a physical tax for the sanity I am desperately trying to maintain. The pain is no longer just an abstract concept; it has localized itself, anchoring into my flesh, proving that my defense mechanisms can shield my mind, but they are slowly breaking my body.

“Just be happy.”

I try. I distract myself with music and TV. It makes me happy. But it’s short-lived. When the fanfare dies down, all I’m left with is this emptiness that slowly takes over my body. First, my body droops, then my smile fades, my shoulders stiffen, and my eyes lose that sparkle almost like clockwork. I’m scared as to what this implies about me. They’re right. Why can’t I be happy? Why is it so hard when I have virtually everything? What is my heart searching for that I don’t have? It terrifies me that joy has become something I can only rent, never own. The moment the noise stops, the silence rushes back in like a cold tide, draining the color right out of me. I am surrounded by every reason to be whole, yet I feel entirely hollow, as if I am a ghost inhabiting a perfectly curated life. My guilt tells me that this emptiness is a defect, a sign of ingratitude. But maybe my heart isn’t searching for more things to hold. Maybe it is searching for a way out of the dark. Maybe it is just desperately looking for the permission to stop pretending.

I can’t even cry properly anymore. I pray for the day that I can actually feel the tears falling down my face. I can cry for other people, but I can’t cry for myself. My body doesn’t allow such selfish tendencies to overtake me. I am an outsider to my own grief, standing in the rain for everyone else while my own skin stays bone-dry. It is like I have built this perfect, fragile cage to keep myself upright, and the cost of entry is my own healing. I am so busy keeping the pieces together for the world that I have locked my own heart out of the room. I want to feel that sting, the weight of a tear actually breaking through, just to prove I am still in here. I want to question if that is such a selfish thing to do, but deep inside, I don’t want to know the answer. That answer will mess up the carefully built sanity I have around me. If I ask the question, I have to face the damage. If I open the door to my own pain, I am afraid the walls won’t just shake; they will collapse completely, and I don’t know who I am without them.

My face is a mask I’ve subconsciously learned to perfect. I want to believe I’m happy, so I smile. I smile so that those around me believe the same lies I tell myself. The deeper the ache, the brighter the smile. As long as they don’t know, I feel safe in my little corner. When the mask works, the world leaves me alone in my private, quiet misery, and the voices go on to other matters. But when the mask slips, in the middle of a meeting, under the glare of school lights, when someone says the one careless line that twists into my heart like a knife, the unfiltered questions of doubt rush in and drown out the practiced calm. It’s so loud. These thoughts get so loud in my head, and I don’t know what to do to stop them. Even in my sleep, words float around in my head. I’m not tired of my life, but I am tired of life.

I just feel tired. But no one seems to believe me when I say it. They often confuse it with laziness. They’ll say that some have it worse than I do. I know that, but it’s not about that; it’s about me. Is this selfish of me? To believe that I actually face horrible things daily? What can I do to move past it?

I’m not telling this story to tell you that in the end, it’s all fine. It isn’t. I can’t be the one to tell you that everything is going to be okay because you’re not okay. Maybe it’s okay to not be okay. Let’s not blossom a bud of hope without trying to work through all the complications first. So I won’t be the one to tell you to get up and shake it off. I’ll sit with you in that dark room, shrouded with the thoughts and ideas of others that plague us. I’ll squeeze your hand so tight, you won’t be able to figure out if I’m doing it to keep you from flying away or just to keep myself sane. Because I need it too. That semblance of structure. Of grounding? I crave it just as much as you. Let’s sit together in this room until we find a door that leads us into the next, where this time, there’s a dim, flickering light in the corner. But I’ll wait. I’ll wait for the time my darkness can slowly crack away.

I want to finally see the light. I want to be happy.