I didn’t go to the mountains looking for peace. Honestly, I just needed a break — from screens, from meetings, from that constant feeling of catching up. Everyone around me seemed to have a direction, a plan, a next big thing. I just wanted… a pause.

I took the first bus out. No idea where it would end. The seat was dusty, the window jammed, but the air smelled like freedom — dusty, rough, but real. I didn’t post a story. Didn’t tell anyone where I was going. For once, I wanted to disappear without explaining myself.

As the bus climbed higher, the network bars dropped. And strangely, so did my anxiety. There was nothing urgent anymore. The only sound was the hum of the engine, a kid yawning behind me, and wind brushing against the glass like a forgotten song.

We stopped near a tea stall clinging to the edge of a curve. I got down. The cold touched my face like an old friend. A quiet dog sat nearby — not begging, not barking — just being. I ordered chai. The man didn’t ask my name. Didn’t ask where I worked. He just handed me the cup.

And that felt… enough.

I sat on a rock nearby, legs stretched out, phone switched off. For a long while, I didn’t scroll, didn’t compare, didn’t think. I just looked — at the clouds, at the road ahead, at the valley below. No filters. No rush. Just the sky doing its thing.

That day, the road didn’t ask me to be productive.
It didn’t care about my bio.
It didn’t need to know if I was doing well in life.

It just gave me space to be someone — without needing to be someone.

And in that moment, I wasn’t trying to heal or change or achieve.
I was just breathing. And that was enough.

— from The Inner Notebook