Yeah, as the title says. I saw the movie tonight. Thought it was mid. Pretty surface-level themes—burnout, passion, sticking with your dreams. Nothing groundbreaking. I’ve heard it all before. But I don’t know, something about it hit different tonight. Or maybe I’m just too damn tired to keep pretending it doesn’t.
I’ve been sitting here in the dark for hours now, replaying the dumbest scenes in my head, wondering why a bunch of one-dimensional anime characters can make me feel like I’ve wasted my entire existence. They’re not even real. Just colors and lines and voice actors reading off a script. But at least they had a script. At least they did something. I don’t even feel like a real person anymore.
I’m 33. No kids. No partner. No degree. A job I tolerate and coworkers I don’t actually know how to connect with. I can’t remember the last time I did something just because I wanted to—not because I thought it would make someone else happy, or proud, or at least keep them from leaving.
I don’t have passions. I don’t even know what that feels like. Every time someone talks about the thing they love, I nod and smile and wait for it to be over. Because I’ve never had that. Not once. I thought maybe I would “find it” eventually, but all I found was more empty space.
And I lie. God, I lie so much. Little things. Big things. I shape myself around whoever I’m talking to like clay that never gets the chance to dry. I’ve become so good at faking it that even I can’t tell when I’m being genuine anymore. Maybe I never was. I don’t even think there’s a “real me” under all this anymore. Just different versions of nothing.
There were teenagers in cosplay at the theater. Grown adults laughing at dumb jokes. I rolled my eyes at first, but then I felt it. That bitterness. That ugly, ugly jealousy. Because they were happy. Or at least trying to be. Together. Smiling like people who actually exist in the world. And me? I sat alone in the back row, arms crossed, judging everyone because I’ve forgotten how to feel anything.
I never figured out who I was. I just became who I thought people wanted me to be. Now, I’m just nothing.
I guess I just wanted to say this out loud for once. Even if it’s to strangers. I don’t really have anyone else to talk to.