It’s a strange thing to think about, being alone. To imagine yourself as a shadow in the world, a ghostly figure in the background. You try to ignore it, as if pretending might make it go away, but there it is, looming. I suppose I used to think I was different, somehow untouched by that particular ache. But now, in moments of quiet, I feel it settle in the corners, like dust that’s been there all along.
I think of what it would be like if one day I simply disappeared, if I faded so softly that no one would even notice. It’s not a morbid thought, not really. Just a curiosity, a gentle wondering. I imagine the room where I’d leave no trace, empty, still, untouched. There would be no voices calling after me, no hands reaching into the silence. And in some way, I think I’d be alright with that.
There’s something about solitude that brings with it a kind of clarity, a sharpness, like seeing a photograph too close up. I see myself here, in these rooms, surrounded by what I once thought was life, a life made of dreams, of things that seemed so real once but now feel like vapor. It’s funny, how you can convince yourself that things matter, that they hold weight, only to watch them drift away like smoke.
I am often struck by the way that the things you once believed you’d always carry can disappear without a fight. The dreams, the little promises you made to yourself, the hope that someone might see you as you are and still choose to stay. I wonder sometimes if it’s my fault, if I willed this into being. Maybe I asked too much, or maybe I was too afraid to ask at all.
But no matter. There’s a comfort in knowing the limits, in understanding that no one really has to stay. No one has to keep holding on when it’s easier to let go. I think I might have learned this the hard way, or maybe it was the only way I ever could.
Even now, the silence feels like a close friend. I lean into it, as if it were a warmth, though I know it’s not. It’s a thin kind of comfort, the kind that presses against you when nothing else will. I tell myself that it’s enough, that I can make peace with this emptiness. I can be alone, I think. I can stand in this quiet and let the world go on without me.
But sometimes, when I’m alone in the dark, I can almost feel the weight of every goodbye I’ve ever heard, of every silence that followed a whispered promise. I know it shouldn’t matter. I know that people drift, that it’s easier to fade away than to stay. But still, there’s a sting, something that I can’t quite brush off.
I wonder if I could vanish, if I could slip quietly out of this life, if anyone would stop to think, to wonder. Perhaps not. I think I would be alright with that, too. In the end, all the things I thought would matter don’t seem to anymore. They are whispers in empty rooms, shadows that only I can see.
And maybe that’s the real truth of it, that some of us are simply meant to be alone, to drift in and out of the lives of others like passing thoughts. We take what we can, give what we have, and when it’s done, we slip away quietly.