When the Music Fades Inside Me

My Dear Stranger,

I don’t know how to start this without sounding like I’m unraveling—

But maybe that’s exactly what this is.

Last night, I stood among people.

Laughter floated around me like confetti.

Music pulsed, loud enough to shake the air.

Everyone seemed present. Alive. In sync.

And yet—

I wasn’t there.

I was standing in the crowd, but I felt misplaced.

Like a word written in the wrong sentence.

I smiled when I was supposed to smile.

Nodded when I was supposed to nod.

But inside, something was drifting—scattered, unfocused, unreachable.

The music faded.

The laughter dissolved into silence.

Not because the room grew quiet,

But because I did.

I felt empty. Disconnected.

As if my soul had stepped a few inches away from my body

and forgot how to come back.

I watched people enjoy the moment so effortlessly.

They laughed without thinking.

They moved without hesitation.

They belonged—right there, right then.

And I wondered…

What happened to me?

Is there something wrong with the way I’m wired?

Am I broken somewhere deep inside—

in a place I can’t reach, can’t name, can’t fix?

My Dear Stranger,

I don't understand why joy feels like a foreign language.

Why does noise make me lonelier?

Why do I feel like I need something to loosen me up—

to pull me back into the present—

Yet I don’t even know what that something is?

My mood feels scattered, like shards of glass

reflecting too many thoughts at once.

Nothing settles.

Nothing stays.

And the scariest part isn’t the emptiness. It’s the realization.

The sudden, quiet understanding that this feeling

has been following me longer than I want to admit.

So I ask myself, softly, almost afraid of the answer:

Why am I like this?

Why am I different?

Why can’t I just be like anyone else?

Am I really that broken?

Or am I simply built to feel things deeper, hear silences louder,

And notice when my soul doesn’t fit the room?

I don’t know yet.

I’m still searching. Learning.

Still trying to understand myself without judgment.

And maybe, just maybe.

The problem was never the place.

Nor the crowd. Nor the moment.

Maybe what’s missing is a soul. Another soul.

One that recognizes mine without explanation.

One that doesn’t need the music to be loud or the laughter to be convincing.

A soul that arrives quietly and somehow makes everything feel aligned.

Not to fix me.

Not to complete me.

But to meet me, right where I am.

To sit beside the emptiness and slowly fill that hollow space

not with noise, but with connection.

Your stranger,

Vie