I love solitude, the calm, the silence. I love taking my time, forgetting the passing hours. I love feeling time flow over me, gently, without resistance. I love simply taking the time to live.
Sitting under a tree, watching its branches dance in the wind. Drinking tea in the sunlight. Watching incense smoke rise, soften, and disappear by the edge of a window. Observing sunlight break through dense leaves, or slowly settle over a sleeping city at dawn.
I love taking my time because I am tired of chasing it. I no longer want time to slip away from me. I don’t want to feel the constant need to slow down, nor the guilt of seeking stillness in a world that moves too fast.
Being Alone
Being alone is being free. It means doing what I want, without constraints or compromises. It means facing myself, listening to my thoughts, embracing my emotions.
When we give ourselves time, we begin to truly hear and understand ourselves… and perhaps find a deeper balance within.
Being alone also means recognizing how limiting our relationship with time can be. In a world obsessed with productivity, every hour feels like it must be optimized, pushing everyone into a kind of frenzy that, honestly, frightens me.
Time & Art
Yet art does not bloom in urgency. It takes time, and it forces me to take time too. Time to let watercolor dry. Time to let ideas come to life. Time to choose colors, or simply sit in front of a blank canvas before beginning.
But solitude has its shadows too. Despite my deep attachment to it, I have sometimes felt that tightness in my throat, that weight I cannot quite name.
Growth
I believe solitude is ambivalent. I love it more than I fear it, but I understand those for whom it carries sorrow, an endless emptiness.
When I turned 18, I lived alone in a small studio, and it was difficult. I felt like I was suffocating, missing out on life. Since then, I’ve lived with others, surrounded, supported, included.
And now, I feel both sadness and joy — closing one chapter, opening another… alone.
Maybe that’s what growing up is. Learning to be at peace with yourself. Cultivating your own garden… and offering its flowers to yourself.
I’m 25 today, and building my illustration business feels like a garden I want to nurture for the rest of my life. Not just financially… but as a way of living.
Let’s see where this journey takes me.
