The Man Who lives On His Own Part 3

Anyway, enough of my gripe, you make your own mind up. I opted out and I now live the life that I think my body and mind has craved for a long time, and you only get one life so why not be happy. What I haven’t told you about is my life in this forest so here goes.

As I said I am up with the light, I have breakfast and I walk in the forest for about two hours. All I can hear is the birds singing and the wood cracking under my feet. Everything is fresh, the smells and the air and everything is clear, it is not hazy like in the city with the pollution, you can stare at a tree about 100 yards away and pick out all its finest details, it’s curves, roughness, bumps and a clear line, an aura I suppose, that outlines that tree like some delicately drawn picture. And the flowers are something, works of art with their many colours intricately woven like they have been painted. I can sit for hours staring at a butterfly, it flirts with me, as it slowly closes and opens its wings and flies off to another tree but still within close range of me. Its beauty mesmerises me.

When I get back, I usually rest for a while, I might read or write. I have always enjoyed writing and I have found since moving here, my thoughts are so lucid and I can feel so creative when I write. I can see now why a lot of these writer’s retreats are in the middle of nowhere. If the sun is out and it’s warm, I enjoy just sitting on my porch, sipping freshly made juice and taking it all in what’s around me, as every day looks different out here.

I’ve had my dark times out here, living with yourself is sometimes not easy, I get negative thoughts and days when I am down, I suppose like everyone else, and the solitude and claustrophobic feelings you get. For me that has been the hardest, when I close my eyes at night, it really is total blackness, like you would not imagine, and the anxiety and panic attacks kick in and I struggle to breath, it’s probably like being in a coffin underground, that’s how best I can describe it, but I have learnt to live with it. The especially bad nights, which seems to be worse in the winter, when some days I can be indoors all day, I’ll take a drop of JD, it usually takes the edge off it.

The few times I have been laid up, normally if I have had an accident and maybe sprained an ankle or something, is also hard. There is a cloud of vulnerability that covers you and you kind of feel trapped with nowhere to go, probably how a rabbit feels in one of my traps.

For me killing animals has been one of the hardest things for me, it has never come natural to me, luckily most of the targeted animals have died instantly, there were only a few times in the early days, when I was tweaking the traps or getting my eye in with my range on my rifle. I hate to see anything in pain, if an animal has to die, it at least deserves to die instantly and painlessly.

Well, I am kind of getting tired now, out here it’s a different kind of tiredness, not like back in the city, when you feel de-energised and just need comfort food, out here you feel your body and mind has had a good work out, now it’s content to just rest. So, that’s what I am going to do, I’m going to seal this up in the one envelope I possess and write on it, TO WHOEVER FINDS ME and leave it on this table here. I am happy, I have a good life.

Good night sweet dreams and God bless .and