i swear i just spent like three hours in a coffee shop trying to make sense of this for my lit theory paper but instead my brain kept going back to my mom. it’s like a broken record player in there. she's doing so much better now which is great obvs (like actually great, no sarcasm) but i just keep replaying those months when she was really sick. and i went to all these prayer groups with her, trying to be a supportive daughter. and like, i don't even believe in god really. i mean, i grew up catholic but i basically dropped all that in high school. but i went. and i prayed. i prayed SO HARD, like silent pleas for her to get better. i remember one time i was kneeling next to her hospital bed and i just kept repeating like "please please please let her recover" in my head. it felt so… primal. like a fundamental part of my being was just screaming into the void. and she did recover. eventually. but it felt like it had absolutely nothing to do with my prayers. it was the doctors, the meds, a really long physio program. i mean, objectively, obviously. but at the time, i felt like i was genuinely trying to bargain with some higher power. like if i just *willed* it hard enough, if my intention was pure enough, if i was a *good* enough person, it would happen. but it didn't. and i’m not mad at god or anything, because i don't think there's a god to be mad at. but i do feel this weird… disillusionment? like i gave a part of myself to something i don't even believe in and it just… ate it. zero return. it’s almost like a negative reinforcement loop for something i wasn’t even supposed to be doing. ha. the irony. and now i just feel this… blankness. like i expended all this emotional energy and it just vanished. and i don't know what to do with that feeling. i’m writing this for a class paper about spiritual narratives and i just keep deleting everything because it all feels so… hollow. like i'm trying to articulate an experience that ultimately meant nothing. and i'm studying for my comps next year and i just can't focus on anything. maybe it's just existential dread mixed with grad school burnout. or maybe it's something else. i just wish i understood why i feel so empty about something that should feel like a relief. it's very bizarre. like a cognitive dissonance but for your soul. ugh. i need sleep.