Since I began living alone, I’ve tried to leave my comfort zone. There was a loneliness at first, so I sought out company, went to parties, felt something like romance bloom in me for the first time. All of that in a few short months. And yet, those experiences were strangely hollow. If I’d always felt inadequate in my natural state, then this unnatural state only sharpened the edges of that feeling. People say these things are necessary, but I don’t know what I was supposed to find. I discovered nothing transcendent, nothing profound. Everything seemed mundane, and often deeply unpleasant.
Lately, I’ve been coming to terms with what I was before – how I lived through adolescence and early adulthood. I don’t know how to be anything else. When I’m among people, it all feels like theater, and I’m a terrible actor. I’ve grown selective with whom I speak, because the truth is, I rarely find anyone that holds my interest, whether for friendship or something more. And yet, the few times I’ve tried to reach for something deeper, it’s felt like the earth gave way beneath me. Suddenly, it felt like I was the undesired and dull individual.
The desire I had, the urge to meet people and leave the safety of solitude, seems to have withered. It feels like a retreat, a slow return to what I was before, though now I step out occasionally, go to a ramen shop or drink alone in an izakaya. It’s not the same deep isolation that once defined me, but it’s close. Worse still, the simple pleasures that used to sustain me no longer bring the same comfort. There’s a sense that I need something more, something deeper, but I know too well that what I crave can’t be found alone. It’s strange, this desire – for connection, for something real. And yet, I don’t know if I’ll ever find it, or if it’s meant for me at all.
Work is the only thing that distracts me. When the day ends, my soul turns blurry, with that same dull weight of melancholy. I find no energy for anything else. I remain myself, as I always was, but clearly more emotional.
I constantly find myself daydreaming about retreating to a monastery, leaving behind the trivialities of life. Devoting my days to something greater than all of this. Or perhaps just taking up farming. The former option seems unrealistic, but the latter… perhaps one day.