Oxygen: When Being Heard Becomes a Need
A personal essay on loneliness, AI companionship, and the quiet human need to be heard — especially when the small live signals of being alive have nowhere else to land.
We love stories about people who refused to give up. We make considerably less inspirational merchandise for the person who looked at the available evidence and said: Actually, fuck this. And yet I've begun to wonder whether knowing when to stop requires at least as much wisdom as knowing when to continue.
A darkly funny reflection on dating apps, dwindling optimism, and the strange exhaustion of continuing to hope for something ordinary.
A personal essay on loneliness, AI companionship, and the quiet human need to be heard — especially when the small live signals of being alive have nowhere else to land.
For thirteen years, freedom has been one of the great loves of my life. But what happens when the thing I fought hardest to keep is no longer something I want unmitigated?