By Nathan Holloway
April 28, 2025

There are days where it feels like my whole life is just a long echo of the chances I missed.

I think about her — the love of my life — more than I should, even now. It’s been decades since we drifted apart, and nothing has ever felt the same. Not even close. I don’t think anything ever will again. And the part that eats at me the most? That kind of love was the only thing that kept me going back then. Through high school, through all the moments when I thought it would be easier to just disappear.

Now I’m 43. I wake up every morning feeling hollow. I go through the motions — work, home, repeat. I sit next to a man who I think stopped loving me a long time ago. He’s not a bad person. It’s not really his fault. It’s the accumulation of trauma, loneliness, fear… all the things that built these walls around me. Walls so thick even I can’t find a way out anymore.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s something so broken inside of me that it just can’t be fixed. I don’t know how to let anyone close, even when I desperately want to. I don’t know how to be touched, how to be seen without flinching or hiding. I just exist. And some days, I don’t want to.

But for some reason, I’m still here. Maybe out of habit. Maybe because part of me still hopes that somehow, something will change. Or maybe because it’s easier to keep breathing than to try to explain why I don’t want to anymore.

I don’t know. I’m just tired. And I’m sorry if you are too.