I didn’t want the thing, I wanted the gap

Dear Delyara, That’s what I finally had to admit. I wasn’t chasing pleasure. I was chasing a gap. A gap between me and my own thoughts. A gap between me and the part of life that felt too loud. A gap between me and the version of myself I had become too aware of. Once I admitted that, everything looked different. The habit. The relief. The shame. The pattern. The grief around letting it go. It was never just about the thing itself. It was about the absence it created in me for a while.