For the vast majority of my adult life, I’ve wanted to run away. When high school got too much, when friends were hurting when life got too hard, all I ever wanted was to just, run, go away.

Which is kind of funny when you consider that I live with my mum in my childhood home.

Details.

Even now, work, family, responsibilities, sometimes all I want to do is just fuck off. It’s not out of a desire to actively be away from my family and friends, it’s more so wanting, I don’t know, a rebirth? A fresh start.

There’s freedom in that, freedom in going somewhere where you aren’t known, where you don’t have to be funny, sarcastic, friendly, strong. Where there are no expectations. Obligation free.

It’s a case of emotional fight or flight. Things get challenging, situations tedious, friendships difficult, when it all gets too much I want out. I mean, relax, yeah? I’m still here, I haven’t gone off, fled, started fresh, but it has been a constant.

I remember having conversations with a friend in high school about this. We weren’t super close, we didn’t exist in the same circle at school but come evening time, we’d chat. This was back when texting people cost .25c per text, and I’d have to use dial-up internet to chat ‘online’, we’d log into mIRC or MSN Messenger and we would stay up chatting to all hours of the night. That’s probably when I realised how cathartic writing about issues could be. We’d rock up at school the next day, say hey but then go to our other friends, gathering more things that we’d complain about that night.

We were at an age where life was changing. Everything was changing. We started realising how difficult life could be, but we had no frame of reference to help handle it. Life, love, death, depression, before this point these were topics that adults spoke about. And the thing about being a kid was that adults always minimised what you were going through. They’d been through it a hundred times before, we were just kids.

And so I’d tell her. This? This place, these people, I need to be away from it. I’d save money. I’d travel the world, making new friends. Going places where I wasn’t known. Where there were no expectations.

It all seemed so temporary. Getting a job, working, it was a stepping stone. I was determined to just go away.

Because leaving seemed easier than dealing with fractured friendships and life decisions.

A job meant money, having money meant I’d spend money. New car, new computer, buying dumb shit? Check, Check, Check. It became the new normal. School was replaced with work, teenage drama was replaced with ‘adult’ drama, which really, was just the same teenage drama rebadged and somehow seen as more important.

I fell into a career. I made new friends, had new experiences.

It still existed though, that innate desire to just GO. When things would get hard when I’d get stressed, I’d get in my car, I’d light up a smoke and I’d daydream about leaving it all behind.

I still do this in some ways. When a situation gets too hard, when something suddenly happens that I don’t know how to handle or sometimes when it’s a Tuesday and I’m all introspective, I’ll light up a smoke and consider leaving it all behind. It manifests in different ways though now, I may deactivate facebook. I might go from extrovert to introvert. I may just turn into a massive jerk. I may blog about it too.

I know this isn’t your traditional fight or flight. I get that. I’m not that remedial. It’s probably not even me choosing to ‘fight’, it’s me choosing my comfort zone. It’s being safe.

The reality is too, I’m still me. I’ve tried to reinvent myself many times, but I still end up doing the same dumb shit, being the same person. That’s OK, I’m a pretty great person. Well. I’m an OK person. I still expect people to be what I build them up to be in my head. I still expect life not to fuck me, I still think that the karma bus may drop money off to me, instead of misery, theft, loss. One day I hope that instead of my house catching fire, instead of my patio blowing away, instead of all of the fucking stupid fucked up shit I’ve lived through, I still hope that something better will come of it.

Really though. A key factor in my lack of ‘flight’ could be that I’m afraid of heights and flying.

Whatevs.