A Retreat Journey: # 6 Voluntarily Exchange and Confession

20 December, 2018

I prefer to live alone. It’s not that I dislike living with others even family members. I tried. It never worked. I need to have my own space, my own room, my privacy. I fancy voluntarily exchange; mutual agreement that I get to invade someone space and they get to invade mine. I don’t find it acceptable that it’s only one sided which happen most of the case. I can get very extreme about this, that’s the reason I don’t really bother talking to people sometimes. ‘ What if I invade their space?’ ‘ what if I invade their privacy?’

Personally, If people come talking to me I have the option to answer and or to ignore. But to make things clear, I choose to share what I want to share. I allow people to know me through the writings I published. I am conscious about that. And I don’t count that as invading my space.

I think today is the time that I feel once again, uneasy. I am alone with myself. Previously, I can sleep on the road, internet cafe or anywhere I want. I have decided to change, so here I am. Writing this journal to fight off my loneliness.

My life is ironical. I am more willing to admit about that. I prefer to be alone most of the time but when it comes to withdrawing myself from the crowd, I dislike it. For the most part, I want to have a healthy relationship with others. But that’s often difficult without having to distance myself. I might be cold and aloof but I really can’t stress myself out involving in a drama which isn’t caused by my recklessness, I had enough. I have several lists of the drama that’s not caused by me but I had to get into it involuntarily.These past few days have taught me the world still exist with or without me, why bother? Based on a book I read, people care about themselves more than they care about us, so I proved it too. It also taught me, I should also never isolate myself. I think it’s good to withdraw but not isolating myself from outside world.

Perhaps, in the next year, I should be more approachable and be a good listener. Since reading tender of the night by Fitzgerald, here are something that resonate about my situation tonight :

“ If I had any enthusiasm, I would go on to new people”

“ Trouble is when you’re sober you don’t want to see anybody, and when you’re tight nobody wants to see you” - Tender is the Night, F.Scott Fitzgerald.

Notes :

I wrote this after the A Retreat Journey: #4 Cheat day. It's the continuation of my thoughts. I emphasize on my opinion about how I view relationship and voluntarily exchange in this post.

Stay tuned for the next following days. If you want to read the previous journey, check out the links below:

Signed, M