Looking inward isn’t always pleasant. In fact, it often hurts. It’s like diving into a stormy sea, holding your breath as you descend into parts of yourself you’d rather ignore. Lately, watching my colleagues celebrate weddings, newborns, and seemingly complete lives, I’ve been asking myself: “And where am I going?”
I see single colleagues lost in bitterness, stuck in the past, or too angry at life to move forward. I don’t want to become like that. But today, as I notice the first white hairs on my chest and in my beard, I ask myself what I’ve truly built over these 40 years.
I’ve spent years supporting friends in their relationships, watching them grow together while I remained on the sidelines, waiting for a love that was never returned. I often feel useless, like my life has been stuck in limbo, never really evolving.
And yet, maybe I have built something—something invisible to the eye. I’ve built a deep capacity for listening, a quiet kindness, a discreet strength that shows up even when everything seems to fall apart.
But today, that’s no longer enough. I long for true love: a love full of passion like fire, burning without destroying; free like the wind, bringing freshness and newness; solid like the earth, providing support and grounding; adaptable like water, always finding a way to flow and solve. I long for someone who truly sees me—for who I really am, including my fragility. Someone with whom I’ll no longer need to look elsewhere, who makes every day meaningful just by being there.
I won’t deny that going through life alone is hard—facing daily solitude, the challenges of a fragile body, the constant feeling of being unfinished. Every day I choose to stay, to get up despite everything, I realize how hard it truly is. But staying means not giving up on myself. It means telling myself every day, “I’m still here, despite it all.”
I don’t have all the answers, but I keep moving forward, because deep down I hope that after all this struggle, something beautiful will finally come—something that makes all the waiting worthwhile.
