The Power of Stepping Away

Becoming Unavailable in a World That Expects Your Compliance

There is a moment—quiet, almost imperceptible—when the soul begins to rot. It happens when you say "yes" out of obligation, when your presence becomes a currency others assume they’re entitled to spend. You feel it: the invisible leash around your neck, the expectation that you should always be reachable, agreeable, understandable. The world feeds on your availability. And sometimes, the only way to reclaim yourself is to vanish.

Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.” There is a collective madness in the way society demands our constant participation. We are expected to show up even when we are empty, to explain ourselves even when we are unraveling, to comfort others at the expense of our own fire. But what if we chose to disobey that rhythm? What if we dared to step back—not in cruelty, but in truth?

There is an immense power in choosing yourself when the world wants to own you. You become a force. You stop being predictable. You deny them the pattern they use to keep you tame.

Carl Jung said, “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” That privilege often begins with stepping away from those who project their needs, expectations, and wounds onto you. They will call it abandonment. They will call you cold. They will say you changed. But what they really mean is: "You stopped letting me define you."

I remember the mornings on the side of a mountain. Long before sunrise, frost on my breath, my hands raw from exposure and effort. Climbing became a way of disappearing. I soloed 14ers across Colorado—Mt. of the Holy Cross, Longs Peak, the West Slopes of Mount Massive, Father Dyer, Kelso Ridge on Torreys Peak. I sought out ridgelines and altitudes where no one could reach me. The silence up there wasn't just beautiful. It was holy.

I was still married back then. Still hiding. Still trying to be who I was expected to be. But the mountain knew the truth. Up there, I didn’t owe anyone a version of myself. I was just breath. Just movement. Just solitude and stone. It was a disappearing act, yes—but also a becoming.

But even when I came down from the peaks, I was still living someone else’s story. And eventually, it all began to crumble. The divorce wasn’t sudden. It was a long unraveling. A slow drift punctuated by the sharp ache of asking, "Do you still love me?" and getting an answer in silence. I learned then that even love can become a leash. Even marriage can ask you to disappear.

And then came transition. The shedding of skin that wasn’t mine to begin with. There is no way to do that quietly. People stared. People disappeared. Some loved me conditionally. Others weaponized their absence. My identity became a battleground, and my peace became something I had to fight for.

Schopenhauer wrote, "A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom." I have known so many small deaths. Social unravelings that taught me over and over: you cannot heal if you're always performing. You cannot grow if your energy is spent begging others to look at you.

I have begged. I will say that plainly. I have pleaded for people to stay. I have twisted myself to be palatable, lovable, easy to digest. I have silenced my needs so that others wouldn’t feel discomfort. And all it ever did was empty me out.

There is a name for this. It's called codependency. It's also called survival. For many of us, especially those who have known abandonment, choosing ourselves can feel like cruelty. But I am learning—still learning—that it is not.

You build your own garden. That’s what you do. Instead of begging others to come water your roots, you pick up the hose. You learn what sunlight you need. You learn which weeds to pull. And you do it in the quiet. Without the applause. Without the audience.

When you become unavailable, people get nervous. They can no longer predict you. They can no longer use your guilt as leverage. They say you've changed. They question your loyalty. But what they are really saying is: "You’re not making yourself small for me anymore."

Nietzsche again: "You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, it does not exist." We must stop measuring ourselves by other people’s comfort. Morality, too, is often a weapon. Be good, they say. Be kind. Be available. Be selfless. But goodness without boundaries is martyrdom. Kindness without truth is performance.

I am choosing truth. I am choosing the trail over the text message. The silence over the performance. The solitude over the applause. I am learning to be unpredictable. To not show up unless it serves me. To vanish when I need to. Not to punish, but to breathe.

This world will drain you if you let it. But you are not a well for other people to draw from endlessly. You are a person. You are a garden. And it is okay to put up a sign that says, "Closed for the season."

They will talk. Let them.

You owe them nothing. You owe yourself everything.

So step away. Step all the way back. Become unreachable. Let them miss you. Let them wonder what changed. Let them talk to their reflections.

Because the moment you return to yourself is the moment the world loses control of you.

And that, finally, is power.

---

the forest heard her name

a lived experienced, solo hiking halo ridge at night on mt. of the holy cross. a pilgrimage of fear, 01.14.25

She walked alone
beneath the weight of sky and shadow,
to where the trees whispered secrets
that no city could keep.
The air was thin, sharp, biting—
frost curling its teeth against her skin,
her breath a ghost
lost in the darkening veil of the woods.

She was unarmed,
save for the blade of her resolve.
No one had marked her path.
No one had tethered her to the world below.
The dim light danced, frail and trembling,
guiding her feet
over roots that clawed at the earth
and stones polished by the centuries.
The mountain loomed ahead,
a sacred monolith carved from silence.
It called to her.

Out there,
where the wind’s howl
carried the songs of a thousand unseen eyes,
she felt safe.
Not safe from the cold that gnawed her hands
or the shadows that crept through the trees,
but safe from the lies of men,
from the weight of their gazes,
their whispered “no”
that twisted into a treacherous “yes”
when she turned away.

Her heart was her own drumbeat.
Her body, her own compass.
No voices clamoring to break her.
No hands grasping to reshape her.
No questions that begged her silence,
because out here, the only answer was survival.
The only motive was the next step forward.
The only rescue was her own.

She heard them in the forest,
the shifting bodies of life unseen—
a crack of branches, the rustle of leaves.
Eyes, maybe.
Predators, maybe.
But there was no fear,
only a steady reckoning
of breath, bone, and blood.
Here, every sound was truth.
Every shadow held no deceit,
only the honest hunger of nature’s vast appetite.

The path twisted higher,
and with each mile,
the forest folded deeper into itself.
The air grew colder,
but her pulse burned steady.
Each step was a decision,
a prayer,
a vow.
Her life, for once,
was not a negotiation.
There was no one to take her voice.
No one to turn her strength into a weapon
against herself.

She climbed until her legs trembled,
until the stars opened like wounds in the sky.
Above the treeline,
where the holy cross of rock
etched itself into the heavens,
she stood on the brink of everything—
her breath ragged, her muscles raw.
The world beneath her stretched infinite,
its silence a balm for the screaming
she carried in her chest.

For once,
she was small but not powerless.
For once,
she was cold but not numb.
For once,
the only sound
was her own voice
whispering into the night:

I am here.
I am enough.
And no one can take this from me.