July 22, 2009
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WCFQ #18: Little Runaway
When I was younger, I, my sister, and a friend of ours went so far as to load up a wagon with our worldly possessions and got as far as the park, which was about a mile away. We were convinced that we could live off the land if given half a chance. Before packing up and leaving, we each headed off in different directions to see if we could find some place to go. I was the one who suggested the mountains. From the park, you could see mountains far in the distance and we, being little kids, didn’t really have a concept of how far away those mountains were. We got as far as the park before my sister and friend gave up. We went home where our parents laughed at us. I sometimes wonder how far I would have gotten on my own, wagon in tow, before I gave up.
I think constantly of running away now. How sad is that? People think running away is a little kid thing. I think more adults than kids want to run away but they think it’s immature to want that. I think everyone wants to run away, deep down inside. No one’s content with their lot, or very few are. Who doesn’t want to head out into parts unknown and explore? When I was a kid, I could lose myself for hours on end in the woods and fields around the house. I was completely unsupervised, and I don’t think anyone ever missed me in all my ramblings except once when I was at my great grandparents, about six years old, and I got it into my head to go visit our nearest neighbor at about 7 am before anyone else had got up. I think I nearly gave them heart attacks, but I never wandered so far away when I was at their place again. That didn’t stop me from wandering anywhere my feet took me when I was at home. It wasn’t as if anyone noticed.
I’ve written this before, but some days I just get in my car and consider driving until I run out of gas. I rarely drive for pleasure, never to the point that I get lost, but more and more I feel like just driving in a random direction, preferably a direction in which I can find large wooded tracts, driving to some remote spot, driving with the intent of getting lost and never coming back.You hear about people getting lost in forests and no one ever sees them again. It’s never their intent to get lost, and search parties set out to find them, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. I think about getting lost on purpose, just to get away from everything. I want to get away from everything that man has created. Part of me wants to see if I can survive. Part of me doesn’t care if I do. I’m not suicidal, but I am… desperate.
I have this deep and abiding loathing of my fellow man. Not on an anonymous, individual basis, I have friends… I like specific people… but as a group; I think we suck. We should be wiped off the face of the earth. We’re nothing but a parasitic virus. I am ashamed of my humanness. I’d rather be a tree or a raven or snake. I’d rather be nearly anything but a human being. They say you can’t run away from your problems, that you carry them with you, but I don’t want to run away from my problems so much as I want to run away from existence. I don’t want to be a who or a what. I just want to be.
Comments (3)
I feel like a part of me is always in agreement with what you have written here.
It would be nice to run away. I think people want to run away from their responsibilities or burdens. But instead we go on vacations to placate ourselves. I think it would be better for most people, and the environment, to live nomadically. Then you’d always be running away.
I ran away with Sweetheart when we were in high school. That alone should have told us something.
For the most part we do suck. That’s why, when we get our property, the world can stay the hell away… except for those we invite to visit, that is. Our own little world.