The Worrying Lack of Tears at a Funeral where Everyone Else was Breaking Down

Dear Delyara, I attended my uncle’s funeral yesterday. He was a kind man, someone who had always been incredibly generous to me when I was a teenager, and around me, the entire family was completely falling apart with grief. I stood there in my black suit, watching the coffin lower into the earth, and I felt absolutely nothing. No sadness, no anger, no tears. Just a dull, flat indifference, like I was watching a documentary about a stranger through a thick pane of glass. This numbness is starting to terrify me more than any sadness ever could. I’ve spent so many years building walls to protect myself from emotional pain that I think I’ve accidentally sealed off my capacity to feel anything at all. I am a stone moving through a world of living people.