Chapter 3: When the Walls Began to Crack

Welcome to the 3rd chapter of A Recluse’s Quest to Return to Life.

“ You have so much free will” - a friend said to me.

While some might call that a privilege, I had forgotten about that one. For the last 2 years I lived like I had none of it. For some reason, I purposely built a wall, protecting myself from the world beyond until it slowly cracks. I thought I had lived until I didn’t.

I thought moving back to the home I used to know would be a good idea until I realized the reason I longed for freedom and away from it. Two years felt like it was just yesterday now. I put up so much until I didn’t realize it.

Until these past few months when I slowly opened up myself and talked about it all, confiding to people I trust. That was when I realized how toxic things have become. My frustration has gone way too far and I made some poor choices just to soothe the actual problems that I feared of facing. But I have had enough now. Not only those poor choices had made me literally poor but also my costing me my own sanity.

The more I stayed behind that wall, the more I realized that my soul longed for something more. All my life goals became a lot murkier and I couldn’t see things clearly. I was never afraid of taking chances, using my free will to actually try things, successfully doing it,or die trying. but living there was so much different. I doubt my own ability and sanity.

It all became clear to me when I slowly went out more, away from those four walls that I purposely confined myself in. Although, I realized that it felt comfortable there, like when the world is against you and when you need rest, it’s a good place to be. As for the rest, it's not great to say there for longer than a just a couple of months.

Now, I realized why all these years I would only visit there once or twice/ year. That place has outgrown me and enduring the last 2 years there was hell on its own. I didn’t realize it right away but there were too many cracks and only recently, I realized how much I stuck, suffocated, and isolated myself not because I really want it but being recluse was a condition I had to do to survive.

Honestly, it has been pretty interesting that those “cracks” made me find myself again. Like I suddenly have that zest to life & experimenting with life once again. Just as I wrote in the first chapter of all this, being uncomfortable is something I have to be friends with. So, I am ready for this next chapter of life where things might get a bit uncomfortable again but as I’ve been talking a lot, I am ready to sail once again, wherever this life led me.

So maybe this reclusive life isn't really my core, rather something I learned along the way as a way for me to survive in that said environment. Something that I should have never gone back to again.

There might be a risk of moving forward in life, embracing a lot more things in my life but it’s not like I could bargain much at this point. But the risk of staying is also high as I have noticed where it slowly turned into suffocation and pessimism. Staying makes me feel like a ghost in my own life and even makes it smaller than it already is. While I know of fact, life is so much bigger than the walls I’ve built for myself all these years.

This chapter won’t be long. We’re halfway there as I am learning to go back to existence and being alive.

Read more behind all these life's quest.

• Chapter 1 : The solitude years, identity, & becoming normal again.
• Chapter 2 : A Door into the World