Apparently, I've Been Living on Autopilot

I didn't realize how my brain has been working for the past year.

Maybe that's the scary part.

I thought I was living. Going through the days. 

Doing what needed to be done. Waking up. Eating.

Sleeping. Thinking. Overthinking.

Trying to figure things out. Repeating.

And repeating. And repeating.

But lately, I've started to realize that I don't think I've actually been living my life.

I've been surviving it.

It feels like someone put me inside a Sims game, gave me three basic commands, and then forgot to turn the damn thing off.

Wake up. Do something vaguely productive.

Overthink everything. Sleep. Repeat.

And somehow, my character has been doing the exact same routine for almost a year.

No expansion pack. No new location. No exciting storyline.

Just emotional damage and questionable life decisions. 😂

I barely see my old friends anymore. 

People I used to talk to. People I used to laugh with. 

People who knew me before everything became so complicated.

And the strangest part? They didn't disappear.

I did. I stopped reaching out. I stopped saying, “Hey, let's catch up.”

I stopped answering sometimes. I avoided conversations.

I avoided meeting people. And I think I know why.

I'm embarrassed. There. I said it.

I'm embarrassed about where my life ended up.

I'm afraid of sitting across from someone who knew the old me and having to explain the new one.

What am I supposed to say? "Hey! Long time no see! How have you been?" 

"Oh, me? I'm great."

Sure.

And I'm also secretly living in a luxury penthouse on Mars.

😂

The truth is, I don't know how to tell them that my life feels like one giant black hole right now.

How do I explain everything that happened?

How do I explain how things went wrong?

How do I explain how badly I've struggled?

How do I explain that the life I thought I was building somehow collapsed around me?

How do I explain my marriage? My second marriage.

The one I thought would be different.

The one I thought would finally be my home.

And somehow… I ended up here.

Separated by silence.

Two people who once chose each other now barely feel like they belong in the same story. He doesn't want me anymore.

That's a painful sentence. Even writing it feels strange.

Because once upon a time, I thought I knew exactly where my life was going.

I thought I knew who I would grow old with. 

I thought I had found my person.

And now? I'm sitting here wondering what the hell happened.

And maybe that's why I don't want my old friends to see me.

Because they remember the woman I was.

They remember me before this. Before the mess.

Before the heartbreak. Before the financial chaos.

Before, I became someone who spent way too much time inside her own head.

I don't want them looking at me and thinking, "What happened to you?”

Because honestly? I don't know how to answer that.

Maybe I made bad decisions. 

Maybe I trusted the wrong people.

Maybe I ignored things I shouldn't have. 

Maybe I held onto things for too long.

Maybe I didn't know when to walk away.

Maybe I was so desperate to make something work that I slowly stopped noticing what it was doing to me.

Maybe I played a part in ruining things. I don't know.

And I'm not writing this to make myself the victim.

I've made mistakes. Plenty of them.

I own that. But there's a difference between taking responsibility and punishing yourself forever.

And maybe I've been doing the second one. For a very long time.

I've been hiding. From people. From conversations. From questions.

From reality. Maybe even from myself.

Because it's easier to stay home and pretend you're okay than to sit across from an old friend and admit, "I'm not okay.”

It's easier to disappear than to explain. 

It's easier to say nothing than to say, "My life didn't turn out the way I thought it would."

But here's the thing.

Maybe my friends don't need a perfect version of me.

Maybe they don't need me to have everything figured out.

Maybe they don't care about the career I don't have yet.

Maybe they don't care about my marriage falling apart.

Maybe they don't care about my financial mess.

Maybe they just want to know where the hell I've been.

Maybe they miss me. 

And maybe I've been assuming they would judge me when they might actually just hug me.

That's a thought I haven't allowed myself to consider.

Because I've spent so much time thinking that people would look at my life and see failure. 

Maybe that's not what they'll see. Maybe they'll see me. 

The same ridiculous person they used to know.

The one who laughs at inappropriate moments.

The one who can talk too much.

The one who makes stupid jokes when things get uncomfortable.

The one who probably still has the same laugh.

The one who just… got lost for a while.

Maybe that's all this was. I got lost. Really, really lost.

And instead of asking for directions, I decided to keep driving in circles. 

Excellent navigation skills.😂

But I'm tired of living on autopilot.

I'm tired of watching my own life happen from a distance.

I'm tired of being afraid that people will discover that I don't have everything together.

Nobody has everything together.

Some people are just better at hiding the pile of laundry.

Mine apparently became an entire mountain range.

So maybe it's time to reconnect. 

Maybe I'll message an old friend.

Maybe I'll say, "Hey. It's been a while. Want to catch up?"

I don't need to tell them everything immediately.

I don't need to give them a PowerPoint presentation titled "How My Life Went Completely Off the Rails: A 47-Slide Retrospective.”

😂

I can just start with hello. 

Maybe that's enough.

Because I think I'm finally realizing something.

My life isn't over because my marriage didn't become what I thought it would.

My life isn't over because I made mistakes. 

My life isn't over because I lost someone. 

My life isn't over because I lost my direction. 

And my life certainly isn't over because I disappeared for a while.

I'm still here. And maybe that's where I start. 

Not with fixing everything. Not with pretending everything is fine.

Just with coming back. 

Back to my friends. Back to my family. Back to work. 

Back to the things I used to enjoy.

Back to being curious about life. Back to laughing.

Back to making plans. 

Back to being a person instead of a character stuck on repeat.

Maybe I don't need to explain the last year to everyone.

Maybe I just need to start living the next one.

And maybe one day, when someone asks, “So, what happened to you?”

I'll be able to smile and say, "Oh, I got lost for a while, but I found my way back."

And maybe that's the story I should be working on now.

Not the story of how my marriage ended.

Not the story of how someone stopped loving me.

Not the story of how badly everything went wrong.

But the story of how I came back to myself.

Because honestly, I've been playing the same damn level for a year.

It's time to press NEW GAME.

And this time, I'm taking the controller.