The Life Of A Recluse

                                                Everyday is a brand new day, everyday is a journey.



When the lamp is shattered
The light in the dust lies dead--
When the cloud is scattered
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken
Loved accents are soon forgot.

--Percy Bysshe Shelley. 

The life of a recluse has never been more appealing to me than now. Who wouldn't want to hide away from the world, especially now when it has been so full of negativity. Everyone seems to be so full of anger toward one another, even people who claim to be your friends. Often we see on social media, our friends taking a break from the everyday barrage of news. I don't want to be arguing socialism, racism, the right to choose and the right to express my faith. I don't want to fight. I just want to live with everyone in peace. 

I wish everyone else felt the same.

There are people out there who view retirement as something that happens to someone else, not them. They don't want to retire. They're not that old. I am not one of those people. I've been thinking quite a lot on that very subject. To me, retirement means stress-less life. Everything we do will be done in leisure. My life wouldn't change much, except that I wouldn't be working. I wouldn't have to deal with all those people. 

There's a part of me that I fight on a daily basis. The part that wants to be left alone. I don't want to socialize. I don't want to deal with other people and their bad manners. More like a lack of manners. I probably would never leave my apartment. The problem here is that there is a huge, huge BUT! I am a Christ follower and that means people. So I struggle. I fight my inner being when she desires to run away. I think that's why I fill up my calendar, to keep myself busy among people.

That also could be why I enjoy social media so much. I can post something and walk away. I don't have to converse if I don't want to and if I do, I can comment to several people all at once. If I don't care for something someone said, I can turn it off. I don't have to sit face to face with them, exercising my social graces. It seems I'm not the only one feeling that way. People use their phones to communicate via social media more than they do in public. My desire to live a reclusive lifestyle might actually happen if people don't look up from their cell phones. 

Would I really like living the life of a recluse? We say all sorts of things in the heat of the moment, but when we are faced with that decision, it's a different matter altogether. Take last Summer when I was recuperating at home from the treatment. There were days I was going absolutely bonkers in the apartment, going from room to room, feeling unrest. We need to go out into the world once in a while, because we need variety. People provide that variety. 

So the next time society drives me crazy, I don't have to run for the hills. I just need a rest, a getaway from it all for a weekend. We all desire once in a while, that chilling kind of day at home unplugged from everyone else. Don't be afraid to take that day. We all could use one.

Have a blessed day everyone.