I Want to Run Away.


I think partly I’m homesick. I miss my town. My places and my people, the hills and valleys and the landscape of Familiar.

Really familiar. Like, simplistically meaningful. Unassuming and raw and quiet the way Tennessee is. I want that surrounding me again.

And Jenny, who turns 24 tomorrow in Thailand, who won’t be home for years. The girl who has seen my soul unedited and loves me still. I’m homesick for her and the other people who grew me.

Partly it’s this time of year. November. Two Novembers ago my heart was broken enough to re-chart my course and change my life. The way it gets dark early, the sun fleeing fast each day, like it’s not quite brave enough to stick around; the way the leaves all change colors and die so fast; the way my breath makes clouds when I run long miles…it all brings me back to a profound memory of trying to get out of bed every day, trying to ask God questions with no answers.

It could also be the halfway point of my Master’s degree, which feels like midway between shores of the ocean. The water just stretches on. Some days lack challenge, other days lack support. So much motion and so little movement. A year and a half to go.

The other side contains even more work.

I’m intimidated to be who I’m becoming.

Partly it’s my discomfort with conflict, at a time when it seems to be finding me. No community is perfect, but all of my spheres of influence are testy right now, and I get this overwhelming urge to escape. I was born a loner. I default there.

All my bones are telling me to get away, you know? Back to the places that are easy, that stand firm beneath me, and give me space to move around. I need the trees and the trails and the cold air. I need Percy Warner Park at sunrise, Frothy Monkey on a Saturday morning, my old church.

I need to be allowed to breathe and remember, feel the old pain, move through a landscape that’s familiar. Space to run through the woods while my mind settles. Freedom to get down a hill on a skateboard because the weather’s nice and I can.

I need to be allowed to tame the running quietly. That means I’m going to stay in Atlanta and do my work, choose commitment without fear, play along with the pre-PhD game even when I want to quit, because my independent streak can be as loud as it wants but I’m taming it anyway.

I don’t have to. It’s just that I want better things than the freedom from people or pain. I want better things than the running away.

I think there are better things than running away.

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