Written by Max B
Max (she/they) is an emerging creative from the Far West of New South Wales. They are an avid writer- haven written for the likes of the AYAC Blog and for their local newspaper, and incredibly passionate about documenting the teenage perspective and equal representation in the media. In her free time, she likes to read sad books, write for her blog, and sing.
I’m standing on the brink of my entire life- the HSC exam timetable was just released, school is getting busier, I’ve applied to universities (???), and there are 168 days until graduation. And it’s making me feel… nothing?
It’s not the kind of feeling that comes with peace, where the world slows down, your brain becomes silent, and everything makes sense. This is the other kind, the kind where everything should matter, but it doesn’t. Where I should care, but I just… don’t. It’s not sadness, not really. Not happiness either. Just a blank space where something should be.
Maybe it’s exhaustion. Maybe it’s burnout. Maybe it’s my brain pulling on the emergency line because feeling too much is dangerous, scary, explosive. I don’t know. I do know that the world keeps moving, that people keep expecting things from me, and I keep showing up, because that’s what I’m supposed to do, and I haven’t known anything else.
It’s weird, how feeling nothing can make you hyper-aware of EVERYTHING. The way people laugh and expect you to laugh too. The way music plays, and you know you should feel something, but it just washes over you like background noise. When you’re mid-conversation and you notice that you’re not reciprocating the other person’s energy. The way people ask, “Are you okay?” and you smile and nod, because explaining that you feel nothing would only make them uncomfortable (or more concerned for you).
Standing before the rest of my life should make me feel something, right? Excitement or fear or a mix of it all. But I guess I’m so overwhelmed with the responsibility that comes with living that my brain’s hit pause on everything else to compensate.
I guess, sometimes it’s okay to feel nothing. It’s okay to take a break when things get overwhelming, and I don’t owe the world everything, all the time. And maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe in five minutes, I’ll feel something again. Maybe it’ll be relief. Maybe it’ll be anger. Maybe it’ll be joy. Right now, though, I’ll just sit with nothing and hope it doesn’t last forever.
Because nothing seems better than everything, all at once, but it’s not the kind of nothing I’d want to keep forever.
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