Empty

Empty

is Empty

I'm not sure when it happened.

There isn't a date

I can circle on a calendar.

No dramatic goodbye.

No single moment

where I stepped out of my own life

and forgot to return.

Just somewhere,

between paying bills,

answering texts tomorrow,

and promising myself

I'd check my email later...

I drifted.

On Sunday

I wrote an email.

By Thursday,

it was still waiting for me,

along with a week's worth

of advertisements

I'd already unsubscribed from

more than once.

Funny how junk

always knows how to find you.

Hidden between coupons,

sales,

and promises

to become someone better by Tuesday,

were the important things.

The quiet reminders

that adulthood

doesn't stop knocking

just because

you stopped answering the door.

Today I took my dogs

to the river.

Water has a way

of asking no questions.

It simply keeps moving.

Afterward,

I slept in my car,

the kind of sleep

that isn't really sleep—

just disappearing

for a little while.

When I woke,

I opened my email

with the same nervousness

as opening a medical test.

What now?

Who needs me?

What have I forgotten?

And somewhere

between the ordinary

and the overwhelming,

I noticed something strange.

People are reading my words.

More people than before.

My LinkedIn profile

keeps growing.

The writing—

the writing I almost didn't share—

is finding people

I have never met.

This should feel exciting.

Instead,

it feels like standing

at the edge of a stage,

hearing my name announced,

while every instinct

tells me to stay hidden

behind the curtain.

Because hiding

has become familiar.

Visibility

asks something much different.

It asks of me

to believe

that what I carry

is worth bringing into the light.

That my voice

can take up space.

That I can.

Maybe that's

what frightens me.

Not failure.

Power.

My own.

Because once you stop hiding,

there's no pretending

you were never meant to be seen.

Still.

The emptiness remains.

Not sadness.

Not numbness.

Not despair.

Empty.

There is a difference.

Nothing

is the absence of feeling.

Whereas Empty

is the presence of space.

A room

waiting to be furnished.

A riverbed

waiting for rain.

A page

waiting for words.

Maybe,

I've mistaken emptiness

for brokenness,

when it has always ever been

an invitation to arrive

Completely.

As myself.