When I Think About Running Away, I Think Of You

Sometimes everything gets to be too much.

I sit there, heart racing, repeating the same Ingrid Michaelson song in my head for the nth time in an attempt to slow my pulse and my mind. I pace, I breathe, I fold the same sweater over and over and make homemade face masks and try to keep my mind off of things. I clean my counters over and over until the bleach starts to crack my fingers and I Google what time the sun is going to rise and wait to watch it.

See, I know I’m being anxious. And I know that I am ultimately in control of my body and my mind and my pulse that refuses to slow. I know that’s it’s mind over matter and that I can choose to be happy.

I know this.

But sometimes, everything gets to be too much.

Sometimes the bright lights of the city and constant sound of cars isn’t romantic or poetic, it’s deafening. Sometimes instead of seeing the possibility around every corner, all I sense is an overwhelming blanket of stress. Sometimes where I feel like I should be living the single girl dream in the big city, instead I find myself missing the nights when I’d sit in a field and feel the dirt beneath my legs and hear nothing but deer in the distance.

Yes.

Sometimes, all I want to do is run away. And when I want to run away, all I can think of is you.

I think this world is amazing and fast and challenging. I think the fact that everything is go go go makes us driven and ambitious and strong. I think we’re lucky to be able to communicate at the drop of a hat and have ideas coming at us so constantly and quickly that they literally never turn off.

But sometimes, that challenging, fast, never-turned-off world is just too much. And when it gets to be too much instead of running with it, I just want to run away from it.

And when I want to run away, I wish I could run to you.

In those times when all I want to do is be back in the middle of nowhere, I think about solitude. I crave that quiet, that that never-ending sky, those mountains that made me feel safe. I crave that air that was so fresh it seemed fake, those lakes that are so clear you can see down deep without straining. I crave that nothingness that somehow felt like comfort, like home.

But most of all, when everything seems like it’s too much, I crave you.

I miss your open arms and your Big Sky smile and the way your laugh seemed to echo back even when we surrounded by trees. I miss how when the breeze tickled my spine and made me shiver the only shelter I needed was you. I miss how there was no fear of being out at 2 AM because the only company we shared was the sounds of crickets and how the wind whistled through the grass.

I miss how when everything seemed like it was loud, you reminded me how to be quiet.

And you reminded me, how to be still.

Because sometimes, everything gets to be too much.

And I sit here, wine glass trembling because I’m shaking from sleep deprivation and still am anticipating being up until sunrise. My pulse is no where near resting even though I’m in bed. My arms have goosebumps and not from a breeze dancing through my door but from a never-ending sense of being close to the edge and hoping I don’t fall.

It’s just one of those days when I wish I could run away.

And more than that, I wish you were running beside me.

Because when I finally stopped, you’d remind me that it’s okay. It’s okay to run away. It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to feel like everything is too much.

But most of all, you’d make sure I remember that it’s okay to stop too.