There’s someone I’ve been meaning to visit. They asked, and I said I’d try. I truly meant it because they’re going through a rough patch. It isn’t a crisis or anything urgent, just the kind of time where being there actually matters.
But I haven’t gone. If I’m honest with myself, I probably won’t.
It isn’t because I don’t want to. It is because the part of me that used to show up just doesn’t have anything left to offer right now. That is harder to explain than I thought it would be, and I feel embarrassed admitting it. I spend so much of my life showing up for everyone else that by the time I get to the people I actually love, I am just done.
I feel empty. It isn’t a big, dramatic explosion. It is just a constant thinning. It feels like every day takes a little more from me until there isn’t enough left to give anyone else anything real. People think of burnout as anger or a total collapse, but this is quieter.
It is looking at a name on my phone and feeling nothing. It is sitting across from someone I love and wishing I could still smile the way I used to. I know they need me, and I wish I was the person who could still show up, but that emotional reflex just isn’t there anymore.
I don’t like this version of me, but it is the one that shows up lately. When it’s someone close to me, someone who might actually see the cracks, I stay away. I’ve already used up my “best self” on other people. I know how much I should care, and I’m scared they will see how little I am actually capable of feeling in the moment.
I love you. I haven’t stopped caring. But I’ve spent years listening to grief I couldn’t fix and sitting in pain I couldn’t manage. Now, even a simple visit feels like a mountain to climb. I feel like I have to enter with presence and leave with grace, and some days I just don’t have it in me.
So no, I can’t visit right now. It isn’t because you aren’t important. It is because you are. I want to show up as someone who is whole, not as someone who is quietly crumbling behind a tired face and tired jokes.
Maybe I’ll find a better balance soon. Maybe I’ll show up next week or next month. But I needed to say this out loud. Not visiting doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring. It means I’ve cared a lot. Maybe too much. I am just trying to stop before I break something I can’t rebuild.
Ghosts of the Navigator 