The urge to disappear and live a quiet life

On never staying, never settling, and never quite finding home

I am someone who needs to experience things to know they’re not for me.

When I was young, I studied at a music conservatory. This was a school for people who wanted to pursue music seriously. I was there for the experience and maybe, just maybe, because I could see my future in it. But then I saw peers around me as young as 11 practicing their instrument 3 hours at night, fully devoting their life to this craft every day, and I knew that I could never be like them.

When I was in high school, I believed that if I studied and worked hard, I would know what I wanted to do. That I would eventually find my craft and all would make sense in the world. But a few careers and countless hobbies later, I find myself back where I started; committing to anything beyond a few years feels like imprisonment, so I leave before I'm trapped. It’s not just about doing the same thing, but also the act of going to the same place, seeing the same people, that irks me. I genuinely can’t fathom how people can devote themselves to a craft for longer than a few years.

I feel this way about all aspects of my life. Like I'm cycling through different lives, shedding one every few years to make room for the next.

Nowhere feels like home. Not the place I grew up. Not the place I was born in. Not the place I found myself in. Every place feels like a part of me, none all of me. Some harbor too many painful memories. Others offer too little to build on. Most demand the exhausting work of building a life from scratch, knowing full well I'll dismantle it within a few years.

It’s not just my home. Anything and anywhere that becomes a second home—be it a job or a hobby—soon starts to feel like confinement. It’s like I’m screaming at the universe how dare you confine me to these four walls? And I must immediately leave whatever it is I have devoted myself to and start anew.

But maybe my search for purpose is my home. My not knowing where I want to be 5 years from now is the purpose. My not having a home is the point. I spent most of my youth building towards a traditionally successful life, and now most of my adulthood undoing that belief.

Some days, I really just want to disappear and live a quiet life. Mute all the noise that continues to pull me in from all directions and live a life without purpose—trying out new things, listening to my intuition, and committing to none.