What do you do when life keeps going on without you?
The worst part about going through a hard time is believing you’re the only one going through said hard time. The second worst part about going through a hard time is watching the world continue, unbothered and uninterrupted, while you remain suspended in place.
Everyone else seems to be moving forward with terrifying ease, while I gather pieces of myself from the floor, trying to remember how I once fit together. I tell myself: Tala, you are losing the time war! Look how everyone moves forward! We need to catch up or we’ll be left behind forever!
One of the hardest lessons from 2025 was realizing no one is coming to save me. I have to save myself by myself. I hated how cruel reality is, yet I know it’s selfish to demand constant attention from people around me already going through their own shit. Look at me! Look at me! Aren’t my problems important to you? Why can’t you see how much I am struggling? Sometimes I feel like a child throwing a tantrum. I am probably writing like one.
When I am feeling defeated by the world, I remind myself I am a speck of dust in a vast, indifferent universe. In the grand scheme of things, I seek comfort in the insignificance of my being. I zoom out from my laptop where I am writing, to my apartment, to the city, the country, the earth, the universe, and find a strange amusement in the stupidity of it all. What else can I do when my whole life feels like it’s falling apart?