Hope and Despair

I started going to the gym again. Eight months of stagnation, of watching my body shrink, my strength fade. For a few hours after working out, I felt something—something other than emptiness. But then reality hit: I lost six kilograms. Three years ago, when I first started lifting, I worked so hard to gain 13 kg. Now, half of that is gone, just like everything else in my life.
The rush of endorphins was fleeting, a cruel reminder that my body is still capable of feeling something good. But as quickly as it came, it was drowned out by the same inescapable weight—her. The memories, the loss, the endless loop of thoughts I can’t shut off.
I don’t know what to do. I am trapped between hope and despair, and despair wins most of the time. There are moments when I convince myself that I’ll be okay, that this suffering is temporary. And then, just as quickly, I collapse back into the same abyss. I look at my life and see nothing but ruin. My work is suffering. My health, both physical and mental, is wrecked. I can’t even step outside without feeling like the whole world is suffocating me. Because she is everywhere. Because she lives ten minutes away. Because every street, every corner, every place I go is a place we could have been together. A place we could have made memories in. A life that could have been ours.
I know life doesn’t stop for anyone, but that’s a lie, isn’t it? Life does stop. It stops in all the ways that matter. The world keeps spinning, but my world is frozen in time. Places lose their meaning. A new place isn’t a fresh start—it’s just another empty, lifeless space. Celebrations feel like a cruel joke. I watch people smile, laugh, embrace, and I wonder how they do it. How do they not see the emptiness? How do they not feel the nothingness that I feel? Every big event, every holiday, every moment that should hold some joy only twists the knife deeper. Because the one person I wanted to share it all with is gone—without a second thought, without looking back, without caring.
Sometimes hope tries to creep in, but it never lasts. It’s fragile, a thin layer of ice that shatters under the weight of a single memory. A single thought is enough to drag me back under. I don’t know how to move forward. This—this pain, this void, this absolute nothingness—is the only thing that has ever broken me to this extent. I don’t even know how to think about her anymore. How do you process something like this? How do you make sense of a person who could destroy you so completely and walk away without a trace of guilt?
How do you watch someone break, watch them fall to their lowest, see them on the edge of life itself, and still look them in the eyes and say, I like someone else. He is nice. He is my boyfriend. How?
What is wrong with people? What is wrong with this sick, hollow world?
Two years. Two years of knowing every single part of her—every trauma, every secret, every dream, every fear. Two years of shared nights, whispered confessions, promises that now mean nothing. Two years of believing, only to be discarded like I never mattered. And for what? For someone she doesn’t even love? For someone who will never know her the way I did?
Eight months. Eight months and I still can’t look at another girl. It feels wrong. It feels like spitting on everything I felt, everything I gave, everything I was. It feels like a betrayal—not just of her, but of myself. A betrayal of all the times I told her I loved her. That she mattered. That she was everything. And the worst part? The part that makes me hate myself the most? If she called me tomorrow, if she needed me, if she was hurt, or lost, or even just lonely—I wouldn’t hesitate. I wouldn’t walk away. I would be there in an instant.
Because no matter what she did, no matter how much she tore me apart, I could never abandon her. But she abandoned me without a second thought.
And I don’t know how to live with that.