Frozen Distance at a Crowded Birthday

Dear Delyara, I sat at the end of a long, loud restaurant table tonight for a birthday celebration, surrounded by people who were laughing, sharing plates, and telling stories. I spent three hours matching their expressions, nodding at the right times, and offering short, polite smiles. But inside my own chest, I felt a vast, freezing distance that made the whole room look like a movie played on mute. The loneliness you feel when you are alone in a dark room is honest. But the loneliness you feel when you are surrounded by people who think they know you, while you are entirely trapped behind a wall of glass—that is a grinding, suffocating ache that leaves you completely hollow.