Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Running Away Justified---Just Maybe...

There are many ways of running away, and I have done probably most of them quite successfully. If I could point to all the places, people, and incidents that I ran away from, I would have lots of dots on the map of my life. When I think about this, I can’t even connect those dots to make a comprehensible image.

Although fleeing has to do with finding a ground of security, some of the things I ran away from had to do with the fear of finding out what it was I was escaping from, but in my mind, I always had a good reason. The problem with my running away has been that I have left behind a tiny bit of who I am without finding out what it was exactly that I was escaping from. In some instances, however, I ran away because staying around became much harder.

In my early days, I used to run away from my mother who used to be the punishing kind. The places I ran to were under the tables and beds and behind the furniture. Several times I hid in the attic until what I deemed to be the threat had passed. In all this running away, however, I couldn’t shake the shadow of the feelings of guilt. Now I wonder if anyone ever does when they run away from facing a parent or any other source of law.

As a teenager I dreamt of running away from home, but I never did. Still, dreaming about it was a form of running away, and shame never came into it. Accordingly, running away inside my mind became my modus operandi. To this day, my mind wanders away from unholy situations and people who engage in what I think is empty talk.

Later in life, in my adult years, I ran away from a stalker, from difficult situations, from overloads of work, from demanding people, and from the opinions of others. Yet, in hindsight, most of these had more to do with not wanting trouble to grind me down than having a false pride. The strange thing is, I never regretted any of my runaway escapades in my adult years. Stranger yet, no one ever thought of me as a person who ran away from things. Someone who knew me well once said about me, “She takes the bull by the horns.”

I guess if I want to run away and disappear, I can do it almost anywhere and in most any situation, even if my body stays put. After all, even when someone is not physically chasing me, I can still run.

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Prompt: Tell us about a time you ran away from something or someone.