In This Dimly Lit Room Full of Emptiness

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.

― Charles Bukowski

Nights are hard sometimes when my kids aren’t here. It’s not a loneliness, especially in the sense that I want someone here. Or want someone period. It’s a tiredness. I’m tired. Mentally and emotionally. Existentially.

This room is dimly lit on purpose, me wanting to create a space that is reminiscent of when candles were the primary light source. I’m not sure why. Maybe it harks back to a simpler time. But it’s calm and serene, the amber lights playing with the shape of the room providing shadows in just the right places, changing the room into something I’m only vaguely familiar with. It feels safe despite the unfamiliarity. There’s a silence in the lights, their coolness providing an invitation to reflect. To be present.

Unlike the lights, though, the emptiness has always been there.

The invitation to reflect leads me to understand I live in a world between my head and heart, never knowing which direction to go. Going toward my head, I become hyper-aware of my thoughts, realizing the absurdity of what life, and the characters within, bring. Going toward my heart, I’m unequivocally crushed by the emotions, both mine and the characters that brought them, contained within. It’s a quandary, one in which I have failed to get even an inkling of what is right. I’m not sure there is a right. There’s peace in between, though I think it’s just less painful. Nuanced. So I stay in the middle, mostly content with the solitude and evenness it brings.

Mostly.

I’m sure about what interests me and I’m sure about what doesn’t interest me. The latter probably more so. I want to trail run a lot. I want to be left alone. I want to leave others alone. I want to mind my business and be good to myself. To be in my own element. To be boring. To be at peace.

Like living in between my head and heart, I’m also stuck in a place where I want to be seen, while also wanting to be invisible. Maybe I just need to be seen by the right person. Maybe I just need nothing. Maybe I just need to see myself and the value of me.

Maybe it’s just all bullshit.

Work doesn’t interest me. I’ve been working for 39 years starting when I was 14. I’ve learned everything I need to about work. Other people don’t interest me. I’ve learned everything I need to about other people. Relationships don’t interest me. I’ve learned everything I need to about how people act while in relationships, especially all the behaviors that hurt the most — I’ve learned so much about that, and the lessons people become. Remaining unattached interests me.

Quiet interests me.

Resting my mind interests me.

Music in my dimly lit room interests me.

I find solace in trail running for hours at a time, joy in the faces of my daughters, warmth in their smiles, love in their hearts, and peace in being alone. I want more of all of that.

When not with my kids or trail running, I find movement in its various forms to be cathartic. It’s a way to help my creativity. I often stop my run or workout or stretching or foam rolling or heavy bag punching to jot down what’s in my head because I know if I don’t, those thoughts will disappear. It seems my brain only has so much room for what’s important while leaving plenty of space for the thoughts and memories that keep me in my self-built prison, the bars made from an impenetrable material I have yet to figure out.

When I was 8 years old, I took a gun from my dad’s dresser because I was tired of being abused. I wanted to use it. Either on myself or on him; it didn’t matter. At 8 impressionable, innocent, sensitive years old. I don’t think I’ve ever recovered from that. Or from my childhood. Despite all the years of therapy, medication, meditation, and thousands of miles of trail running. Those memories have lingered the 44 years since and made appearances at random and most often at times when I needed them to not appear. To stay hidden. That is one of those thoughts that has a permanent place in my brain, though. It’s a scar I’m unable to hide. Or forget. So instead, I hide.

I’m doing my best to exist in a life I don’t understand. But my best is often subpar. Unacceptable. And I don’t know how to change that. I’ve tried. You have no idea how painfully hard I’ve tried.

I don’t know what life is measured by anymore.

I certainly know nothing beyond my own reality.

And I’ve become so silent that all I hear is the incessant and insidious noises that surround me.

I read a quote that said, “It’s better to deal with the universe as it actually is, rather than create a more comfortable narrative.”

This is the universe I live in. As it is.

And this dimly lit room full of emptiness is my little slice in a universe filled with an uncomfortable narrative.

©Copyright Jeff Barton, 2025. All Rights Reserved. This story originally appeared on Medium.