Waiting on a Wish?

I’ve been existing for so long. I haven’t been living. I’ve just figured out how to make it through the day… and then the next. One day at a time.

I guess that’s what they call survival.

And maybe that’s all it was.

I think I gave up a long time ago. Not all at once, not in some dramatic way. Just slowly stopped caring about anything that wasn’t right in front of me. There were moments, sure. Small things here and there. But for most of the last twenty years, it’s been day by day. Sometimes hour by hour.

Sometimes it was just chasing sleep. Wanting it. Needing it. Not even for rest, just for the break.

It wasn’t about being comfortable. Although I wanted that. I really did. I longed for it in a way that felt almost physical. But like a lot of things, it always felt just out of reach.

Or maybe not out of reach.

Maybe I just didn’t have the instructions. Didn’t know the rules. Didn’t even know if there were rules—just this sense that everyone else had access to something I didn’t.

So now what?

Have I had some great epiphany?
Nah. I don’t think it’s been anything that grand.

But something’s shifted.

I’ve started to notice things. Started to want more than just existing. And that want—it’s not quiet. It’s not subtle. It’s made me hungry for something I can actually feel.

Connection.
Friendship.
Laughter.

Not the forced, shit-eating grin kind. Not the “get through the day” version of it. Not polite chuckles or background noise.

I want the kind that takes over.
The kind that catches you off guard.
The kind that makes your stomach hurt and your eyes water and you can’t catch your breath.

I want something real enough that I stop wondering what it would feel like.

And start actually doing it.

I have no idea how to get there.
How to have any of that.

There isn’t a formula for it.
If there is, I missed it.

I wake up.
Routine.
Medication.

Then nothing.

Not dramatic nothing. Not collapse. Just… absence. Time passing without much resistance. I sit in it and watch it move.

I catch myself thinking about what it would be like to live again.

Even that sounds rehearsed.
Like something I’ve heard before and kept.

I don’t know how to live.
I know how to maintain.

There’s a difference.

It’s not that every day is empty. That would be cleaner.
There are interruptions. Small spikes. Moments that almost register.

But they don’t hold.
Nothing holds.

Most of it is just continuation.

And I don’t want pity.
I don’t.

If this sounds like whining, it’s probably just insecurity leaking through. It does that.

Human, right?

I don’t even know if that word fits anymore.

I feel managed. Maintained.
Like a system running on updates and adjustments.

“More machine now than man.”

That’s how it feels.

Medication.
Therapy.
Frameworks. Acronyms. Strategies.

CBT. ACT. DBT.

Like I’m following instructions on how to be a person.
Like I’m learning a language I should already speak.

And maybe it helps.
Or maybe it just keeps everything from falling apart in a more organized way.

Either way, I don’t know where I am in all of it.

Or what part of me is actually me.

Or if there’s anything underneath all of this that isn’t just… managed.

There’s supposed to be something, I think.
Something you feel. Something that anchors it.

I keep waiting for that.

Recognition.
Contact.
Proof.

But I’ve been here before.

Same place. Same expectation.

No arrival.

Just continuation.

Still here.

Still running.

Still waiting.

For something I don’t recognize.

Yet?

Or maybe this is it.
And I’m still waiting anyway.