You know there is more. But nobody else can see it.
There is a kind of loneliness that has nothing to do with being alone.
One that walks past hundreds daily.
On its way to work.
Through the park.
Even when it’s surrounded by many.
It’s understood by none.
The eyes hold countless stories untold.
For if they were told. They wouldn't quite be understood.
Only felt.
It began with a strike.
Something struck my body and then said, "Try living this way."
The body could no longer be trusted.
Not just in the obvious ways.
But in the ones nobody sees.
Whether I’d have enough energy to get through the day.
Whether a flare would come before I could finish what I started.
Whether I could promise anyone anything.
That uncertainty became something constantly running in the back of my mind.
Behind every morning. Every conversation.
And quietly I began holding back from the things that mattered most.
Career. Hobbies. Relationships.
The desire was always there.
But to do them sick
is to do them as a reminder of what they could have been.
I refused to let them carry that mark.
That is not just frustration.
That is its own specific kind of grief.
I knew there was more I wanted from life.
The gap between what I wanted and what I could do
made me no longer recognize myself.
Nobody could really grasp what was going on.
To explain is like talking to a wall. It would be better to save it and lie.
That was the first gap.
When nobody could grasp it, the only conversation left was with the body itself.
Each day energy felt even more sacred.
So I preserved it.
Only for what gave it back.
That’s when I fell deep into nutrition and lifestyle.
It wasn’t just to nourish the body, it was the only hope I had left.
I’d visit three different grocery stores nearly every day like I had to forage for survival.
Studies piled up on every tab that could help in the fight.
A cabinet filled with supplements like I was some drug addict.
I’d dream of peptides like it was a savior.
I did anything it took.
I knew an alien stood next to who I was before.
Everyone saw a man losing his mind.
But for me. It was survival.
Not survival as in barely making it.
It was no longer just about being symptom free.
Symptom free was the floor.
The ceiling was something else entirely.
A body that could be trusted.
A mind that could finally follow.
I couldn't accept this was all that life becomes.
The more pain I faced, the more restrictive I got.
To go out and eat something meant fear not knowing what exactly was in the food.
That restriction brought more questions from others.
Questions where if I explained in detail, it would mean more energy draining.
And if I gave the answers, it wouldn’t be understood.
It was futile.
It brought another gap between me and most.
Even on the days the body cooperated, the mind was already calculating the next.
To grow old still living under this cycle.
To have ambitions that turned into mere dreams buried somewhere in the mind.
Every ordinary day felt like evidence of that fear.
The unpredictability of a sickness gave fear to work.
The energy drainage made me no longer crave hanging out with friends.
That feeling of weakness convinced me I wasn't ready for a relationship.
I stopped myself from filmmaking because I don't want to be walking sick on camera.
My life became a constant wait.
When asked what I was waiting for.
My heart would race.
My eyes would fill.
Because my answer depended on something I couldn’t control.
When I get better.
For me that was the hope I held on to. That some day it will change.
But for others it was someone avoiding life.
Both were true.
But there is a truth only I can feel.
This pain knowing that everything I’m doing right now in life, could have been even better.
It’s something larger than this illness.
It’s the life not lived.
Functioning half of what I could have been because I lacked half the energy.
The love I could have given, but couldn’t reach the words for because I’d rather use whatever energy I had left towards the fight for my body.
Not being in the moment because I’m stuck thinking what could happen in the next.
I hate knowing there is more.
And feeling it just out of reach.
I’m aware my standards of life is harsher than most.
I expect more.
I deeply believe, what life is there to live if you are not obsessed with living?
To live is much more than mere existence.
It is actively feeling each second of life.
Completely.
To not have that
is a life unlived.
Half of me is present.
The part everyone could see.
The other half is still somewhere else.
When you’ve lived long enough at half capacity because of something that feels out of your control, eventually another question forces its way in.
Why is this happening at all?
What is it for?
The most honest answer I found wasn't the most satisfying.
God picked an interesting man to make sick.
Picked a perfectionist that cannot live knowing he could be doing this better.
Maybe it’s a lesson to overcome that trait.
But to be honest. I like the trait.
It’s the reason why anything I do in life I either put my soul into it or I throw it away.
It’s what makes me known for not just what I do.
But makes me who I am.
And once you know what made you.
You start to see what made the world.
It became another direction of the same question.
If I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me.
Maybe I could understand why anything happens to anyone.
That’s when the question changed.
From God.
To people.
How did other people end up in their directions in the first place?
I knew why I became who I was.
So how did others become themselves?
That question stayed in my mind through every conversation.
It wasn’t pretty.
It wasn’t reassuring.
But it made sense.
Because that exact pattern was in me.
I could see how my traumas and experiences left a scar on how I saw the world.
That scar no longer bothered me, it was a truth.
Ever since that realization, I started seeing a truth in others.
A tone of voice. A defensive laugh. A choice of words.
Each individual’s past was speaking through them.
All quietly shaping the person standing in front of me.
I could no longer unsee it.
But in that process, something changed.
The interaction began to feel less human.
It felt like I was turning people into a calculation.
Not individuals with their own stories.
But the result of everything that happened before them.
I knew exactly what their response would be before I'd finished speaking.
Conversations felt completed before they even begun.
It’s not that I hated any one or thought of them as below me.
I simply couldn’t feel the importance of it anymore.
The gap took me far from many.
My body.
My family.
My friends.
Far enough that I believed I am not someone meant for these things.
And whilst that certainty existed.
The want to be understood persisted.
Just one person. That’s it.
The more I expressed.
The more I felt this gap.
Not because they didn't listen.
But because understanding requires more than listening.
People can be empathic. We could sob together.
But to understand.
That is an entirely different thing.
It requires one to see why that individual is the way they are.
And not just hold that feeling for that moment.
But actually hold it throughout the relationship.
I don’t expect to be understood anymore.
But I long for it.
I feel a pain I can never describe if asked.
Because it is for something that doesn’t exist.
The word sadness is too abstract to describe it.
It feels like someone is missing from your life.
You’ve never met them.
You don’t know what they look like.
It is truly in another life.
And yet.
I find a beauty in not being understood.
Because I understand.
That is the person who understands.
And the value of that is immense.
Because nobody else ever truly can.
But it can get lonely too.
-Noah