There’s a kind of disorientation
I remember too well,
not seeing a stranger in the mirror,
but feeling like one
somewhere deeper inside myself.
Everything looked the same,
but nothing felt like mine.
I suddenly felt older
as if time had caught up all at once.
The things that used to excite me
fell flat.
The goals I chased for years
felt like they belonged
to someone else.
And the worst part was
no matter how closely I looked,
I couldn’t say when I lost myself.
It wasn’t sudden.
It didn’t announce itself.
It was quiet.
One day, without warning,
I just woke up
and something was gone.
I was still living
breathing, perhaps
but only in motion.
Going through days
that didn’t mean anything.
I still have those days.
I remember thinking
this must be failure,
the accumulation
of bad decisions.
That I had done something wrong.
Missed something.
Lost something
I wasn’t supposed to lose.
So blindly, I kept going.
A wanderer
who refused to admit
he’d left the path.
I think we fool ourselves like that
hoping something will look familiar
if we just keep moving.
But nothing did.
And when it almost did,
it didn’t.
I couldn’t answer
simple questions anymore.
What do I enjoy?
What do I want?
Is this what it means
to feel lost?
I didn’t know.
I didn’t trust myself.
I didn’t trust others
to decide.
Inside, I didn’t feel connected
to anything real.
It felt like
I was living a life
that wasn’t mine.
Doubt came.
Self-pity too.
But that wasn’t the end.
That was the beginning.
Because feeling lost
isn’t failure.
Careful reflection
told me otherwise.
It’s the moment
something in you
stops pretending.
The moment the self
and the ego
quietly separate.
One keeps performing.
The other
steps back
and waits.
And unless you wander,
how would you ever
notice the distance?
How would you ever
find your way back?
So I said
start small.
Sit in silence,
even when it feels uncomfortable.
Like sitting with someone
you don’t know anymore.
At first,
there was nothing.
Then
something.
And I felt.
A thought
that felt real.
A quiet curiosity.
A small pull
toward something
I couldn’t explain.
I followed it.
Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
I wrote it down on paper
but that wasn’t enough.
So I wrote it
in my heart.
Just enough
to feel a flicker again.
I began to notice
what held my attention.
What made time disappear.
What brought even
a little light back.
These weren’t big things.
Just fragments.
But they were mine
songs I loved,
thoughts I once had,
things I once believed.
And slowly,
piece by piece,
I started to come back.
Not by becoming someone new
but by remembering
who I had always been.
Because the truth is,
no matter how far I wandered
I was never gone.
Just buried
under noise,
All these expectations,
and a version of myself
that wasn’t real.
This isn’t a destination.
It’s something I return to
again and again
in small choices,
in quiet moments,
in listening
when I’d rather distract myself.
And now I see it clearly
the wandering
was never wasted.
It was the only way
I was ever going to find
myself and recognize
my purpose
again.