A Seat Outside My Walls

Sitting outdoors has never really been my thing. I’ve always found comfort within walls – the kind of silence that feels safe, the kind of space that feels mine. A room with no expectations, where the world doesn’t look in and I don’t have to look out. But today felt different. Something gentle, almost unexplainable, nudged me out of that comfort. And here I am, at a café where the view stretches wide: bricks rising like warm shoulders, green leaves spilling over the edges, clouds drifting like slow dances in the distance. The sun leans lower, pouring out its last rays like a goodbye that doesn’t want to end, and the wind brushes against me – cool, unhurried, almost tender. 

 

For a moment, it feels like Bali. The air, the vibe, the calm rhythm of nature. As if the ocean is just out of sight, waiting with open arms. It’s not Bali, of course, but my heart believes the illusion. After so long, I am here, outside, and I am finally breathing. 

 

I open my laptop, its glow faint against the fading light. It’s still mid-month, and I don’t want to break the streak I promised myself: at least one blog, every month, no matter what. Yet these past weeks have been heavy. Work has pulled at every thread of me – mind, body and focus unravelling day by day. It has been hard, really hard, to stay whole. Maybe that’s why I’ve started to hold weekends with such tenderness. They don’t just arrive on the calendar anymore; they arrive like fragile lifelines. Two short days where I can finally exhale, where I can pause before the current drags me under again. 

 

Lately, I’ve been turning into podcasts, and certain questions echo in me long after the episodes end: Am I really the main character in my own life? Or am I just a side note in someone else’s story? Do I matter to the world around me, or am I simply passing through? And if one day I was gone – what would really change?

 

I try to answer, but the words never land. The thoughts circle, restless, like birds that cannot find a place to settle. I know what I want my answers to be, but the feel thin, hollow – like shadows of the truth. Maybe the truth is sharper than I’m ready to face. Or maybe the truth isn’t something to be caught in a single sentence. Maybe it’s something we discover in pieces, as life unfolds, slowly, stubbornly, in its own rhythm.

 

And yet, as I sit here, watching the sky dim into shades of silver and gold, I feel something shift. The wind moves as though it carries secrets I’ll never fully know, and I wonder – maybe being the “main character” doesn’t mean clarity. Maybe it isn’t about dramatic declarations or perfect answers. Maybe it’s about the quiet, ordinary act of choosing. Choosing to step outside when you could’ve stayed hidden. Choosing to sit still and let the world move around you. Choosing to write, even when the words feel heavy and slow. 

Maybe the main character is not the one who has it all figured out, but the one who keeps showing up – to the page, to the moment, to the life what’s waiting. Maybe the main character is the one who dares to keep breathing, even when the air feels uncertain. 

 

And tonight, in this café, with the bricks at my back and the breeze wrapping around me, I feel that quiet reminder – I am here. This moment belongs to me. The sky doesn’t ask me to have the answers. The wind doesn’t demand I know I am. They simply remind me that I exist, that I am part of this scene, that I matter enough to witness it. 

 

And perhaps… for now, that is enough. 

 

 

“Not every chapter needs an answer, some just need to be lived.”