notes from a person passing through

Written after getting home late with a backpack full of shit and a heart that feels a little too empty. Humming I look into your eyes but I can’t find a reflection.

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Tonight I came back home late because my boss apparently enjoys dragging me into his mind at all times. After work, I packed my stuff from my boyfriend’s place, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and caught the bus back to my mother’s apartment. It was almost 10:30 pm by the time I unlocked the door and dropped everything on the floor.

I’ve been splitting my time. One week at his place, one week at my mother’s. It’s not something I’m doing out of necessity; it’s just the way life is working right now. It leaves me feeling like I belong nowhere. Neither place feels entirely mine. It’s just me and my backpack, moving back and forth, living out of zipped compartments, never really landing anywhere.

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After settling in tonight, I scrolled through Reddit and stumbled across a post that stuck with me in a way I didn’t expect. Someone had edited out the reflection in their eyes in a photo, and it made them look unsettling in a way your brain picks up before you even have words for it. Someone commented, “Have you ever seen the eyes of dead people? They’re dry. They don’t reflect light. That’s what they do in movies when a character dies. The VFX guys paint out the eye reflections.”

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And I realized: that’s exactly how I have been feeling lately. It’s not that I’m visibly broken or doing anything dramatically different. I’m still smiling when I should, talking, answering emails, making plans, listening to people, reacting. But it feels like something fundamental has dulled inside me, like whatever used to catch and throw back the light isn’t there anymore.

I see it when I catch my reflection, especially late at night like this, when I’m alone and tired. I always feel the need to do something. Something is always missing and I am the one causing it. The surface is still there but the inside feels dry, like nothing is reaching out anymore. I don’t know when it happened. Maybe it faded so slowly that I didn’t notice until it was gone, or maybe something took it all at once and left me standing here, still moving, still doing, but without any real light to bounce back.

The reflection might be gone. I’m still not sure. My brain may let me know sometime.

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