When You’re the Last to Know You’re Missing

“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” — Marcel Proust

I said “lol”
when I hadn’t moved in ten minutes.

They kept talking,
and I kept typing
like someone watching himself from outside the room.

My face did the thing
where it looks interested.

I watched it do that
like it belonged to someone
who remembered how to show up.

Everything was too loud
but I couldn’t hear a single word.

And when they said my name
I froze
like I’d been called into a body
I wasn’t living in.

“Not all breakdowns look dramatic. Some look like smiling while forgetting your own name in a group chat.”

Some of the worst collapses never reach the floor. They stay upright. They nod. They remember birthdays. They text back quickly, but without texture. The breakdown gets camouflaged because movement continues. Because no one’s counting the parts that went missing when the body kept going.

You start noticing it in quiet ways. The silence after you speak. The way your name looks strange when someone types it. The way your voice comes out like you’re quoting yourself, not living inside it. You’re still replying. Still reacting. But the part of you that feels tethered, that part has slipped.

You’re still visible to everyone else. It’s yourself you’ve slipped away from. When performance becomes instinct, authenticity starts to feel like a threat. You don’t even know what you’d say if someone asked how you’re doing and actually wanted to know.

Repair begins the moment something interrupts your pattern. When instinct meets friction, and you pause long enough to wonder why. The next time you smile through dissonance, stop. Not to explain it, just to notice. That moment of noticing is where re-entry begins. You don’t need a revelation. You need enough friction with the surface of your life to realize you’re not in it.

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