Run

I want to run.

Not because I have a destination that I want to run towards.

Not because I have anywhere, in particular, that I'm going at all.

I wanna run because too often, lately, it feels like the weight of the entire world is weighing down on me, and it is a weight so heavy that I don't think I can handle being smooshed like this much longer.

I want to run because I suppose, instinctually, running seems like it has always allowed me to escape.

My rational brain reminds me that running is not an option, or that maybe it is an option, but it's not a logical solution to the problem.

But everything feels so heavy and scary and big and overwhelming and just too much, and I just wish that I could be five again; that I could run and hide and find solace somewhere, like I did in my blanket fort.

Or, that I could be seven again; so that whenever I was afraid, I could climb into that hollow space in that hide-a-bed in the garage where I slept. I could hide inside of that void area where the mattress would usually fold up when the hide-a-bed was closed (yet it always stayed open because that's where my brother and I would sleep– in the garage).

No one ever found us there. We were safe when we hid there.

Whenever I was 12, and things would be too much because the barely-legal, barely-old-enough-to-be-considered-a-woman girl that my dad married struck me hard enough across the face to where my skin would throb and swell. When she jacked me up against the wall- or just plain decided that she would not allow me to enter the home.

Whenever the southern Carolina sun would push temperatures up past 100°, and my brother would be allowed to be inside but I wouldn't. So, I would spend my days under the house, dodging free-hanging electrical wires that were not grounded, along with the critters and crawlers that lived below.

I want to run because I suppose, instinctually, running seems like it has always allowed me to escape.

Then the day came when her brother joined our home. He was 21, four years her senior, and he too took his liberties with me. From that point on, I would run. I would run to the moss-covered mounds of dirt surrounded by acres upon acres of pine and oak trees.

There I could lay upon these mounds of mossy ground, surrounded by scores of little up-shoots of ferns, protected by a canopy of interlaced and interlocking leaves of pine and oak overhead, in varying shades of neon, lime and hunter greens, all so rich and beautiful.

This forest ceiling would provide shelter for me when I would run, and I would imagine, in the distant parts of my imagination, that I was some sort of fairy princess. And that mossy mound, encircled by the steadfast white oak standing guard, was my throne… 

It wasn't often that I actually tapped into using my imagination, but there was something intoxicating about the power of that forest area that would always allow me to be someone that I was certain, otherwise, I was never going to be.

I never really had dreams about who I was going to be, what I was going to do. Most days, my mind was occupied with what I was going to do to ensure my caregivers weren't going to notice me.

If they noticed me, they would either take out their frustrations on me with hurtful words or painful blows. Or, certain ones would come to me late at night, wake me as I slept, and release their aggression at my expense in a far more intimate manner, leaving me shaken, broken, and in more pain than their words or hands could ever cause.

It didn't matter what home I was moved to, there always seemed to be at least one person who felt entitled to take from me what he wanted. From as young as two, until at least 16, each placement brought a new violator.

And as I'd lie there, unable to fight, unable to defend myself, unable to make any of it stop in that moment or in the future, I would run, in my mind, to the places that helped make me feel safe.

I would run, and I would imagine, in the distant parts of my imagination, that I was some sort of fairy princess. And that mossy mound, encircled by the steadfast white oak standing guard, was my throne… 

Now as I sit here, at the age of 40, feeling helpless and hopeless, defeated and aimless, I am struck, once again, by the overwhelming desire to run.

But where would I go?

To whom would I run?

I have learned the hard way that, no matter where I go in life, there will always be heavy things, scary things. And no matter how much I strive to do right, to stay under the radar, there will always be a wolf at the door, dressed in sheep's clothing, trying to gain entry into my house.

As I sought to help someone very special to me yesterday, I asked them “What does 'making it' look like to you in regards to when someone says ‘I'm tired of not 'making it?'" They answered my question and answered it well. It allowed me to move forward with the next question I needed to ask them, which was very vital to leading them to discover, for themself, what they already knew.

BUT

As I'm asking this question to someone else, it opened my eyes to the fact that I could only answer that question for myself by saying “I have no idea... But it sure as hell ain't this…”

I.

Am.

Just.

Exhausted.

I miss my kids terribly. I miss knowing what I was supposed to be doing with my day, with my life, taking care of them. Yes, it was hard, many times impossibly hard, but it was NEVER a task I was not up to.

And no matter how much I strive to do right, to stay under the radar, there will always be a wolf at the door, dressed in sheep's clothing, trying to gain entry into my house.

So shame on those who declared I wasn't capable or fit to care for them. I devoted every breath of my life to them.

Shame on every person who narrated my inner monologue and labeled me as stupid, gullible, worthless, unworthy, unimportant, or a nobody.

Shame on every person who has ever known that they were receiving 100% or more of my heart and my effort, my time and my love and devotion, while also knowing that, in return, you were only offering a small fraction of yourself. Enough to keep my gullible and naive heart holding on, as I'd hope that one day, you'd care enough about me to consider me important.

Shame on everyone who gained my trust just enough to allow me to let you in to my guarded heart. Just so that you could take whatever you wanted and leave behind a shell of whatever remained.

Because now, what remains is a scared and lost little girl in the shell of a woman's body that people look at and wonder “Why the fuck are you so incapable at life?!?” Who’s trying to figure out how to start over, AGAIN, in this terrifyingly massive world, with no idea what to do.

I never really had dreams about who I was going to be, what I was going to do. Most days, my mind was occupied with what I was going to do to ensure my caregivers weren't going to notice me.

Along with the added bonus of decades of baggage preventing the kind of take-off that one prepares to encounter when they first go out into the world.

Rewriting the narratives are difficult enough, but the new narratives have to come from somewhere.

That doesn't happen when you're all alone.

Like I am alone.

Which makes me wanna run...