I sat on a cold wet rock, my hair in a ponytail reaching down my back. The rain spat out into the forest like a broken faucet turned off. The air was cold but I felt comfortable on my perch, as I was, shivering with pleasure.

It was a silence that would frighten some. The small pattering around me of woodland creatures, tweeting of small birds, and shuffling of dry leaves all spoke to the life symbiotically around me.

Cold, damp, alone. How one feels closest to nature. My body’s thin composition turned pale while the leaves fell like glitter from the sky. I could die here happy. People back home would laugh ironically at my end being exactly how I envisioned it, my loved ones would be angry.

Why does it bother some people that alone is a state of being? Alone is where I find peace, speak to myself, and connect with God. I’m not afraid of being alone, I’m afraid of being surrounded by masks, by disingenuous people, and by a society that would profit off of my life, my death, and my suffering.

Ask me when I feel the most ethereal, and my answer will always be; when I am alone, in the forest amongst the glowing aspens, smooth birch, and whispering sounds of my mother, the one that protects me, and engulfs me with love. When I am one with the Earth.