I lied. I lied when I said I was fine.
I lied so many times that it started to sound like the truth.
I don’t even know why I felt the need to write this. Maybe because lying to myself has become a reflex—something I do just to get through the day. I tell people I’m okay. I tell myself I’m okay. And somehow, life keeps moving forward while this sharp, aching loneliness settles deeper into my chest. I function. I show up. I try to be well. But honestly, it feels like I’m watching life happen from the outside, like I’m missing something everyone else seems to have figured out.
And everything that happens in my life feels undeserved—like this life was never really mine to begin with. As if I’m only borrowing it, as if I don’t have full rights to exist in it. Like I’m just… here. Temporarily.
I was supposed to be gone.
I once saw a line that said, “Haven’t you been saying that since you were 12?”
And yes. I have. And now I’m 21, still asking myself why I’m here. That question has followed me for years, growing louder every time I fail, every time I get tired, every time I burn myself out trying to prove I’m worth keeping around. I tried to be good at everything. I tried to be everything. Just to survive.
When I was a kid, all I wanted was to grow up. I dreamed of independence, of standing on my own two feet. I imagined myself as a soft but strong woman in her mid-twenties, teaching high school students English, shaping minds, finally living a life that made sense. That was the picture I held onto when things got hard.
Here I am—a second-year college undergraduate who once had her dream course, her dream university, and her dream scholarship. And now I’ve lost them all. I tell myself, “It’s alright. At least I’m okay now.” I say it casually, like it doesn’t sting. Like it doesn’t echo in the quiet moments.
But deep down, there’s this question I can’t silence:
How did I let myself drown in these emotions when my whole life I’ve been so good at pretending everything was fine—even when it was falling apart? I used to be so good at hiding that no one noticed I was struggling. Not even me.
I never wanted to leave that school.
I never wanted to lose that scholarship.
I never wanted this version of my life.
And now that I’ve lost it all, I feel like I’ve lost myself too—standing in the middle of what’s left, unsure of where to go next, unsure of who I am without the dreams that once defined me.
But maybe… just maybe… being lost isn’t the end of the story.
Maybe this pause, this grief, this unbearable quiet is not proof that I failed—but proof that I cared deeply. Maybe the dreams I lost were chapters, not conclusions. And maybe what is truly meant for me doesn’t disappear forever. Maybe it waits. Or returns. Or appears differently, right when I’m finally ready to see it.
I don’t know what comes next.
But I’m trying to believe that whatever is right for me will find its way back—or be placed gently in front of me when I least expect it.
And until then, I will stay.
Even if I don’t fully understand why yet.
