unsafe

i am an emotional fugitive… a running a wandering traveler. safety is an unknown ideal for me. i have no safe home. my house in tennessee was never a safe home. it wasn’t even a home. when I go back there to visit, i feel the same old feeling of shadowy isolation and confinement creep over me… and I’m reminded oh so clearly of the eighteen years i spent hiding my heart under a rock and fighting (physically, emotionally, literally, and metaphorically) to keep my head above the flood.

i miss my orange leaves on the autumn trees, popsicles in the park, coffee and spirituality, bluegrass and the friends to sing it with me, breezy summer nights, tea and blankets, walking barefoot down the country road….

I miss my tennessee.

yet, I do not miss it. how I can I miss a place so unsafe? all it takes is one day back, and everything is still the same as it always was… heartache chasing me, a fight around ever corner, and longing for a freedom I will never have there.

that cannot be my home.

and yet, this place cannot be my home. after living my whole life in bondage to fear, i finally embraced the long-awaited day that i could find healing, justification, and acceptance in utter honesty… in stunning vulnerability… in quiet grace…

yet, this place is not safe for me. my friendships are devastatingly unsafe, my feelings bleed steadily, and while all of this is happening, I am expected to maintain the appearance of a carefree woman, sewn together neatly at the seams with the standard white thread.

i’m supposed to be “fine… how are you?”

i have slowly come to the realization that I will never be safe anywhere… with anyone. i will be running for the rest of my life.

and right now, all i want is just to run away to somewhere else… messy hair, mascara-stained cheeks, bare feet…. i don’t even care this time. just let me run.