The Inclination to Run

I've always had it in me to run.  And not in the 40 yard dash kind of way.  Whether I was watching Runaway Bride or listening to Wide Open Spaces I was always fascinated with getting away.  Away from all of those people who just wouldn't stop.  Who always had a comment, because apparently nothing I did ever warranted a simple smile in acceptance.  When I was in the fourth grade I found my first escape.  My cousin was over, and I had simply had enough. I asked her to just leave me alone.  She refused.  I locked myself in my Grandmothers guest bathroom, and got lost in a book called Lily's Crossing.  She knocked, yelled, and slipped notes under the door.  But I didn't respond, because I wasn't there.  I was on the South Carolina shore, helping Lily solve a mystery.  In middle school I found my need to be somewhere else constant.  In the seventh grade I read Wicked, five times.  I carried it with me to every class in a gallon sized zip lock baggy, to keep it free from pencil marks.  In Oz, it didn't matter that I never understood my math homework or that today my best friend decided she didn't want to me my friend anymore.  There no one could tell me that I had a bad attitude or that I didn't try hard enough or that I'd never amount to anything special.  Looking back I know that the only way I made it through was because I knew how to run. Recently I heard a story about a man who dropped out of college because he couldn't find a parking spot one day.  I couldn't help but think that sounded like something I would do.  There comes a point when you just can't take it anymore and you have to get out.  Most people are taught that running is bad.  You hear that nothing good comes from leaving your problems in the dust.  Those people are wrong.  It's a way to survive. Forgetting is the hardest thing in the world to do.  But I know how. If I had to pick my favorite book, I would chose The Secret Garden.  It's the story of a miserable little child.  She has a bad attitude, she doesn't try hard enough, and it just so happens that she turns out to be extraordinary. She finds a place that she calls her own, where she can go to escape.  Eventually she shares her secret world with a few special people, and they find that they enjoy the escape too.

Would you like to run away with me?