The weather outside is lovely.
The sun is shining. The birds are chirping. Everything feels alive. The kind of day that should make me want to go outside, meet people, do something, be productive, be grateful.
Instead, I want to curl up on the couch and read a book all day and all night.
This is my comfort zone.
And I don't want to leave.
Lately, my life has started to feel meaningless.
Not meaningless in a dramatic way. More in a quiet way.
Like I wake up, work, eat, sleep, repeat.
A life that looks normal from the outside. A life that many people would be grateful for. A life with security. A life with healthcare. A life with a stable paycheck. A life that should make sense.
But it feels like a cage.
And the strangest part is that the cage is comfortable.
The cage protects me. The cage gives me certainty. The cage gives me a future.
Yet somehow my spirit feels gone.
I feel like I am spending my life on something I never truly wanted, while the things I do want continue waiting for me somewhere in the distance.
The thing I want most is surprisingly simple.
I want to read. And I want to write.
I am an expat living in a country where I do not speak the language fluently. I never realized how exhausting that could become.
Every interaction takes effort. Every conversation costs energy. Every joke needs translation. Every friendship takes longer to build.
Sometimes I think that is why books feel so comforting.
Books do not ask anything from me. Books do not require performance. Books do not require translation. Books allow me to exist exactly as I am.
Maybe that is why I keep returning to them. Maybe that is why I want to write one.
For a long time, I thought the problem was freedom.
I thought if I could just escape the routine, escape the obligations, then I would have time to solve things.
But lately I am not so sure.
Maybe what I am craving is not freedom. Maybe I am craving meaning. Maybe I am craving agency. Maybe I just want my life to belong to me.
The question that always circles in my head is this:
Is it worth it?
Is it worth risking security for something uncertain? Is it worth leaving behind a stable path for a dream that may never work?
Or am I simply afraid?
Afraid of insecurity. Afraid of failure. Afraid of finding out that the life I imagine is not actually better than the one I have.
I do not know.
What I do know is that time keeps moving. And every year that passes makes the question louder.
Because the truth is, when I imagine my future, I do not imagine a bigger title or a higher salary.
I imagine a room. A quiet room. A couch. A stack of books. And a manuscript that slowly becomes a book.
Maybe that dream is unrealistic. Maybe it is romantic. Or maybe it is the most honest thing I have wanted in years.
I do not think I am running away from something. I think I am trying to return to something. Something that feels like me.
