Hiding From Life

A few days ago my mom said something to me that hit me like a basketball to the face: “You’re hiding from life.”

I never really thought of it as hiding before. I know I’m not living life as I should be, as I want to be, and I know that fear is the main thing that’s stopping me. But hiding is something that I never associated with how I’m living now. Now I’ve realised how true this is; I have been – am still – hiding.

This has been happening mostly subconsciously for many years now. I’ve been engineering my own failure, mainly when it comes to school work, but also with my creative writing and anything else that I try to do. All so that I can stay in my safe haven, a place that I’ve been forging for years with forbidding walls, and nearly impenetrable defenses. And now I’m attempting to lock myself in.

My world has been comprised of my house, the internet, and the world of fiction, with occasional visits outside every now and then for appointments at the dentist and the like. I don’t know how to live life, or even interact with people. In fact, I’m wary of people and their intentions. I’ve been stung one too many times in the past when I’ve tried to reach out. Ultimately, I am afraid of the outside world (the outside world being the world beyond my home and computer). A world that in many ways, I’ve been disconnected from for a long time. And I can’t seem to find the spot – the socket – where I connect anymore. I know that the world is out there and that I’m a part of it, but I don’t always feel it.

It’s easy to feel insignificant with almost seven billion other people on the planet and a universe that’s so huge that it hurts my brain to even contemplate it. They say one person can change the world but it’s hard to believe it a lot of the time (then again, there is another quote that says that the people crazy enough to believe that they can change the world, are the ones who do). However, that’s not really what makes me feel so distant from the world; that is all on me.

I disconnected myself by choice to protect myself. Now I’m so used to hiding that I don’t know how to stop. I have to find a way though. I can’t keep going on like this. I don’t want to keep on living in such a closed world, where nothing much ever happens and where I’m wasting my life away, never truly experiencing all that life has to offer.

Maybe what I really need to do is steel my courage, face my fear, and take a step outside.