I Am Lost

There are mornings when I wake up and forget who I’m supposed to be. I lie there, staring at the ceiling, the weight of everything pressing on my chest like an invisible hand. The world outside keeps moving—cars pass, people rush, alarms go off—but inside me, everything feels still. Not peaceful still, but empty still. Like drifting in space with no stars to guide me.

I don’t know when I started feeling this way. There wasn’t a dramatic turning point. No explosion. No sudden collapse. Just a slow fading, like color draining from a photograph left in the sun too long.

People ask how I’m doing, and I say, “I’m fine.” That phrase has become my shield. It’s easier than trying to explain the fog that follows me, or the ache that doesn’t have a name. Most of the time, I don’t even know what I would say. I’m not sure I understand it myself.

I used to be someone. At least I think I did. I had dreams, ideas, energy. I was passionate about art, music, books. I used to stay up late sketching or writing in my journal, filling the pages with messy truths and wild hopes. Now those same pages sit blank on my desk, untouched. The pencil doesn’t feel like it belongs in my hand anymore.

I walk through life like a ghost—present but not really there. I go to work, smile at people, nod at the right moments. I’ve gotten good at pretending. Too good. No one suspects that beneath the surface, I’m screaming. That every day is a quiet fight to keep from unraveling.

I scroll through social media and see people thriving—traveling, laughing, falling in love, building things. And I wonder: what happened to me? Why did I stop moving forward? When did I get so stuck?

It’s not just sadness. It’s confusion. It’s numbness. It’s watching the world through glass, unable to touch anything real. I keep waiting for something to snap me out of it. A spark, a sign, anything. But nothing comes. Only silence.

One night, I found myself standing in the middle of my apartment, surrounded by clutter. Dishes piled in the sink. Laundry forgotten. Lights dim. And I just… stood there. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know who to be. I felt like a stranger in my own life.

“I am lost,” I whispered to no one.

It was the first honest thing I’d said in a while.

But somehow, that moment became a seed. A small, raw truth that refused to go unheard. I am lost. Maybe admitting it is where the journey begins. Not the kind of journey with maps or milestones, but the kind where you just take one breath at a time and hope you’re headed somewhere.

I started doing one thing a day. Just one. Washing the dishes. Going outside for ten minutes. Writing a sentence in my journal, even if it was just “I don’t know what to write.” At first, it didn’t feel like much. But over time, the small things added up. Like drops of water slowly filling an empty glass.

I began to realize something else: I wasn’t alone. Everyone is carrying something. Some people hide it better than others, but no one escapes the weight of being human. And when I started being honest about how I felt—really honest—others opened up too.

A friend told me he felt the same way after losing his job. Another admitted she struggled to get out of bed some mornings. We cried. We laughed. We didn’t fix each other, but we reminded each other that we weren’t broken beyond repair.

Being lost doesn’t mean you’re gone forever. Sometimes it just means you’ve outgrown the map you were following. Or that you’re in between versions of yourself. And that’s okay.

Now, I still have days when the fog rolls in, when the silence feels heavy again. But I also have days when I feel light peeking through. Days when I hum along to a song without realizing it. When I sketch a little, even if it’s messy. When I smile, not because I have to—but because I want to.

Healing is not a straight line. It’s a spiral, a dance, a storm. But every time I say, “I am lost,” it no longer feels like defeat. It feels like a signpost. A place to begin again.

And maybe that’s what being human is—losing and finding yourself, over and over, in a thousand quiet ways.