Sometimes I think I used to be a lot smarter and awakened when I was younger. When feeling all the Feels was magical and dramatic and epic. Heartbreak was a tragedy and comedy rolled into one legendary story. Words rolled from my fingers and stories played themselves in my head.

Now, I’m older and I’m numb. My vocabulary has dramatically shrunk. The stories that used to tell themselves to me in my waking and sleeping hours have fallen silent. I ignore the news because the world seems to be crumbling, and most news is never good. I lose myself in books because our reality fell into chaos. Balance has escaped us, and the idea of getting it back spins further and further away. So I shrink. I recoil. I cry. I lose my words. I go numb.

The world was much more textured, raw, poignant 10 years ago. Sure, I was emo, but I wrote a lot. I read more. I listened to the news.

Or maybe I’m remember myself through the lens of a jaded ThirtySomething who still feels as lost as the naive, emotional TwentySomething I was. Maybe we never grow up, maybe the world just gets smaller and smaller, and our blinders close ever more, until perspective becomes a pin point.

There’s still light in that infinite little dot.

Maybe that’s all that matters.

I still feel dumb, though.