One of the ways I deal with my shit is by running away. Running away to other cities, states, hell, even to another country.
For most of life I’ve had a longing, a tugging feeling that I just need to go. To do and see and experience that which I’m not currently doing, seeing, experiencing. To be hurled into a completely different situation, a new start. To shape myself all over again.
In the past, I’ve reacted to my unhappiness, melancholy, or dissatisfaction by listening to that longing, following it wherever it called me. Following that urge was the easy answer; I could simultaneously get away while collecting new experiences. Following it has led me to Maine, DC, France, Tennessee, New York City, and most recently, Dallas.
I first remember feeling this in high school; my goal at that point was to get the hell out of Texas, to go away far, far away. Because even though I loved my friends and my school, I saw Dallas as a fake, plastic city and I needed to leave and go somewhere with culture and history and importance.
So I did.
I went to college as far away as I could, the furthest of any of my classmates, in fact. I started there in the fall, in a school in a quaint little New England town. And I was downright elated that I was finally where I was supposed to be. It was sickeningly picturesque: red brick dorms, hundreds year old buildings named after famous alumni, a campus littered with trees whose leaves were painted brilliant oranges, reds, yellows at the beginning of the school year.
But.
Wouldn’t you know, as much as I tried to ignore it and pretend it wasn’t there, that familiar tugging crept back. Even though this was the place I was supposed to be, even though this is what I’d always wanted…my heart was still pulling me away. That first year of college is when I realized that maybe my desire to go far, far away wasn’t only Dallas’ fault. Maybe it was an inherent part of me.
I’m not really sure what to call it, this tugging feeling, this desire to go. Is it wanderlust? Is it a product of being young? Am I just too choosy? The thing that really gets me about it all is that even once I go and start over somewhere new, I typically end up yearning for the places I left. Never truly satisfied.
Now, I’m here, back in Dallas, and in a place where I’m content…but that longing persists, the strings pulling me away. As much as I try to swallow that feeling and to push away that tugging…I feel it.
I know I should take advantage of the fact that at this point in my life I can just get up and go, relatively easily. Because lord knows that won’t always be the case. So doubtless, though I try to convince myself I won’t… I’ll go. And leave again. And start over, again. And collect more experiences. And collect more failures. And collect more successes.
But I always wonder… Will I ever just be?








