He woke up into yet another intense day at work. He got his goodbye kiss from the love of his life and approached his car while trying not to spill his hot coffee. “6 new messages”, his luxurious smartwatch said. As always, he drove to work while making endless phone calls. Each one presented a challenging dilemma he successfully addressed, as he was one of the brightest corporate managers that his company had ever known. Although they were a bit tedious, these morning calls made him feel good. However, unlike most days, today he experienced unusually heavy traffic, which awkwardly-enough, left him with no further calls to make. He thought for a second and dialed his wife. She didn’t answer, as she was probably busy with her morning routine. He tried his elder son, which answered and they chatted for a while. “Ben, I’ve just arrived at my office, we’ll continue to catch up later?“ He hung up his phone and parked his luxurious car in his specially reserved parking space. He quickly glanced at his watch to check how late he was for his first meeting, and the watch replied – “11 new messages”.

[Typical important busy day at work…]

On his way home, he made some more calls. Unlike morning time, the way back offered him an endless potential of conversations. It even got to a point that he needed to plan carefully how to allocate his driving time. “Are you ready? We are going to be late!” Amanda said as she urged him to dress up for their friends’ dinner. He quickly changed his clothes and they got out just in time. On their way there, Amanda shared her extremely busy day with him and he enjoyed listening to her, as he felt that she needed to “air it out”. When they arrived, he switched to his autopilot mode and started doing what he does best – socializing. A funny story here, a good piece of gossip from work there, all creamed with an emotionally-insightful toast he proposed right before their delicious meal. It was yet another perfect night together.

Usually, on their way home Amanda stayed awake to keep him company. Although they’d never really talked about it, Amanda somewhat knew that he just loved to keep the conversation going. However, at that night Amanda just couldn’t bear the tiredness and surrendered to her biological instincts. At that point, Eli felt stuck. He couldn’t call anyone because it would wake Amanda up and he didn’t want that. He couldn’t even turn on the radio because he knew that every little sound would pull Amanda away from her sweet dreams. Eli was indeed stuck. At that moment, he started to feel that it’s happening again – and he hated it! He was a man without fear, but this one was an exception. Eli started to feel an emotional storm emerging from within him. He tried to resist it, but it only made things worse. Then, he tried to keep his mind off of it, but it was stubborn (just like he was). “Thank god”, he thought to himself once they’d finally arrived home! That night, Eli held Amanda’s hand just before closing his eyes, while waiting for the storm to pass.

[Another morning, more phone calls…]

Eli was one of these people who jumped from one promotion to the other. Everyone around him knew that it was only a matter of time until he would park his car in the CEO spot. Eli started his morning with (yet another) strategic business meeting with (yet another) strategic business partners that specially flew to meet with him. The meeting went great, just as Eli had planned – until his assistant interrupted. “Sir, you have an urgent call, it’s your wife”. He didn’t think twice and hurried to the phone. “Is everything ok?  What happened?”, he asked. “I don’t know, I think I’ve just fainted. I’m feeling very weak, could you take me to the hospital?”. Without a blink of an eye Eli rushed out and sent his assistant to make the proper apologies. On the way home, Eli tried to evaluate the situation from every angle, while thinking of every possible contingency. “Amanda had always been very healthy”, Eli thought to himself, as he struggled to recall when was the last time such a thing had happened to her. Eli felt a storm inside him, but this one was of a different kind, the kind he could understand.

“The results came back: Amanda seems perfectly okay. She just needs a little rest. At this age, irregular sleep and high stress can lead to physical weakness up until your body forces you to take a break”, said the doctor with sympathetic and honest voice. Amanda and Eli were relieved to hear the news, and Amanda admitted that she’d taken too much on herself lately.

As they drove back home, the adrenaline in Eli’s bloodstream gradually returned to normal. Only then, Eli’s body reminded him that he needed to go to the bathroom. As always, Eli used even his “private” time for work, but after today he just needed to clear his head. Eli opened his facebook app and scrolled through the infinite funny-cat-dog-moments, the distant-friend-great-vacation-photos, the super-talented-4-year-old-singing-audition, … and BAM! The screen went dark. He remembered that he’d planned to charge his phone at work, but today had different plans… Eli knew that he MUST keep himself busy, or else… he searched the bathroom for something to pass his time with, and all he found was an empty neat room instead. He considered asking Amanda to give him her phone, but he didn’t want to interrupt her after what she’d gone through. Suddenly, without any notice, the unknown emotional storm started again! It seems that it got stronger from last time. Eli tried to ignore it and again – he failed, while his storm was feeding from his energy of passive resistance. He seriously thought of “wrapping it up” and leaving the bathroom, but his body signaled him that it wasn’t the time yet…

Eli realized that he was cornered, and decided to use what he believed to be the best weapon at his disposal – socializing. However, this time, it was with himself. “listen, I don’t know what do you want, or why you’re here, but you know what?! Why won’t you tell me whatever it is that you want, so we could find a way to be at peace?”. This little self-conversation felt actually good, as Eli felt that giving his storm a voice would be a good way for them to communicate. Eli knew that if he could transform the conversion into a form of negotiation – no one (even his weird voiced storm) could beat him at it. Eli reached his hand to the near upper drawer and took an old empty notebook with a pen attached to it. “I’m listening…”, he said to his other self. The storm agreed to his terms and Eli started writing…

Page after page Eli wrote down every single word, as he needed this madness to stop. With every new word he wrote, the storm became a bit more relaxed. Eli didn’t care anymore where he was – so he left the bathroom and took the notebook with him, as he was completely devoted to the mission. Only after writing a few dozen pages he finally stopped. Confused and curious, Eli wanted to go over the storm’s notes again. Eli turned back the notebook to the first page and started reading… Slowly, Eli felt tears coming down from his eyes… tears that he couldn’t control.

Eli finally realized, that it was the first time that he’d spoken with his emptiness.