bare essentials

When I was growing up I never once thought about running away from home. I think every one of my friends had or even just talked about it, but not me. Not ever. I guess that (at least until middle school) I never had any complaints. The problems I had didn't lie at home, in fact home was the one good constant thing in my life. Of course my middle school days changed all that and soon home did become a place that I dreaded, but still I never thought about running away.

So it strikes me as odd that here I am, 21 with my own home and I'm grown up and wishing to run away. It is as if everyday I come home from my long day of work and or school and think about packing my things and just hitting the road.

More than anything, I wish I could be like Donald Miller (in his book Through Painted Deserts, read it if you haven't) and just jump in a van with a buddy, packing only the essential items, and some cash to make it through and then take off.
No destination in mind.
No course in mind.
Just a goal--- to get away and see for myself our country and the people in it. But mostly, I just want to get away from the miseries of everyday life. Not just bills, homework and nagging people all around me, but to escape what my life has become. What I have somehow let it become. In trying to find my place in this world, I have made myself so busy that I have lost contact with what I want. I feel as if I can dream, but then I must come back to reality almost right away to fulfil the duty of an exam or planning a lesson. I just want to be rid of it all. Rid of the guilt. The pain. The bad memories. The loneliness.

I just want to be a hippie for a little while and travel to destinations unknown. I want to make my dream, my silly fantasy a reality, leaving everything behind, not caring what it is when I return (should I return).
My whole life people have just walked out, most of which without any sort of reason. I just wasn't enough anymore. And to be perfectly honest, I''m sick of not being enough. I'm tired of being no one's top five. I'm so frustrated with being left out, ignored, pushed aside.... I just want to get away and be with only me and God. I want to throw my phone in a lake, grab my ipod, bible, books for reading, a journal, my camera, a few clothes and just leave-- not worrying about where I am headed or what I am leaving behind.
I just want to go.


If only it weren't just a fantasy.