I-Want-to-Share and I-Have-No-One-to-Tell

Twelve minutes past nine at night. The phone buzzes once, the screen lights up on the edge of the bed, and the first line of the email makes me sit bolt upright: I passed. The certificate exam I had studied for a whole year, waking early before work every morning, switching off the TV and sitting at the desk every night.

I stand in the middle of the room, hands shaking, body suddenly hot. And the strangest thing happens right after: I open my Zalo contacts, scroll past more than three hundred names, and cannot tap on anyone.

Two voices in my head started talking from there. I wrote them down, because later, reading it back, I finally understood what had happened.

I-Want-to-Share: Call someone. Call right now, stop thinking. I passed. I really passed.

I-Have-No-One-to-Tell: Call who? I just scrolled the whole list. Hạnh is probably getting her kid to sleep. My university friends are scattered, and our last message was last Tet. My colleagues, well, we are not close enough to call at nine at night. As for texting, I drafted it, typed it four times, deleted it four times. Every time it looked so bare.

I-Want-to-Share: So nobody knows. A whole year of effort and nobody knows.

I-Have-No-One-to-Tell: It is not that nobody knows. Mum knew I was taking the exam. Hạnh knew too. But what I want is not just for them to know. I want someone here, right now, looking at this screen and saying "oh my god, well done." I want their face.

I-Want-to-Share: Yes. Their face.

For a moment both of us go quiet. Out in the alley a motorbike stops at the milk tea shop on the corner, somebody laughs loudly, then the engine starts and leaves. In the room there is only the fan, and the yellow glow of the bedside lamp spreading over the crumpled sheet.

I sit down on the edge of the bed. My thumb is still resting on the send button, and I suddenly find it a little funny: a whole year of effort, and at the moment it pays off I am helpless in front of one tiny button.

I-Have-No-One-to-Tell: If someone were sitting next to me, I would probably hold the phone up, point at the screen, fail to say one proper sentence, and grin like an idiot. Now who do I hold it up for? The empty room?

I-Want-to-Share: No. Hold it up for yourself. You are the one who got up at five every morning for a year, the only one there from start to finish. If anyone deserves to see this screen first, it is you.

That sentence silences me. Not because it is clever. Because it sounds strange, and I have never thought of it that way.

I-Have-No-One-to-Tell: That sounds a bit odd.

I-Want-to-Share: Yes, odd. But try it.

I stand up, phone in hand, in the middle of the room like a fool, and say it aloud, softly: "I passed." My voice in the small room sounds unfamiliar. For the first two seconds I feel embarrassed. Then for the next two, something eases in my chest, not the end of loneliness, just that the happiness has somewhere to be set down for a while.

I-Have-No-One-to-Tell: I still want someone.

I-Want-to-Share: Yes. Me too. Do not make me stop wanting. Maybe tomorrow morning I will text Hạnh, maybe not. Tonight I only need this good news not to slip past with nobody there to receive it.

I-Have-No-One-to-Tell: I will receive it.

Then I walk to the door, slip on my sandals, and go down to the alley to buy a milk tea with light ice. The woman at the stall asks, "Something good happened today?" I say, "Yes, something did." That is all. She smiles and adds a spoonful of tapioca pearls. I carry the tea home, sit at my desk, and write one small line on the calendar: today I passed.

The first time, many people feel embarrassed, like talking to themselves in an empty room, and some feel a lump in the throat. After a few tries, some find the happiness feels less wobbly, and some still want someone beside them, and that is not wrong. On a day that is too busy, just say one sentence silently in your head, then write one word on the calendar.

Sometimes the hard part is not sadness but happiness with nowhere to land. People talk a lot about loneliness in sadness, and rarely about loneliness in joy. I think they are the same place: something that wants to be seen.

If you have also opened your contacts and closed them again, try reading learning to talk to yourself like a best friend. And if one day you want someone to listen to you for longer, there is listening with full presence, a piece about the opposite thing: how to be the listener.

When to seek professional support

This article is a conversation in the head about one lonely moment inside happiness. It cannot replace treatment, and I am not promising it will make that feeling go away.

But here are a few signs you should bring to a professional, rather than carrying them alone:

• A feeling of having no one to share anything with that lasts for weeks, whether the news is good or bad
• Eating or sleeping thrown off for a long time, or no longer enjoying things that used to make you happy
• You find it hard to talk to anyone at all, including people who used to be close
• You think about hurting yourself, even if it is just a passing thought

The last point cannot wait. Speak with someone you trust, today. The Emergency Support page explains what holds true in moments like that.

Seeing a professional is an ordinary thing to do, like seeing a doctor when discomfort drags on.