Sometimes running away is the right thing to do

 I ran away from home earlier this week. 

After several days/weeks/months (fuck 2020) of feeling more and more frustrated by the lack of social interaction and freedom of movement, I got up after a largely sleepless night and, after my morning pages, booked an Airbnb for the night at my closest beach. I briefly explained to my partner what I was doing, and packed a lot more than one day's worth of clothes and hit the road.

The Airbnb was not my fave (it's hard to relax when there's construction on the other side of the small parking lot), but my fear about being out in the world was worse. I didn't realize how scared I'd gotten about something as simple as walking down a downtown block. But there I was, scared of changing my professional priorities, scared of not changing them, scared of being somewhere new, scared of not going anywhere new, just plain annoyed with myself and scared about the world.

Luckily, my sister (who had COVID early into the pandemic hitting this continent, saw 60% of her coworkers get hospitalized and one of them die, giving her more justifiable reason than anyone to be scared) was able to talk me down a bit and even get me to laugh and joke and more importantly breathe. I even slept decently.

Then in the morning, I went to the beach.

Wrightsville Beach, NC

And it was glorious. 

It was a great reminder that this too shall pass and that nature's history and knowledge is far greater than humanity's. I reconnected with the earth in myself in all the woo-woo ways that this actually sounds.

Then I ran off because too many people were getting to the beach and I had to check out of the Airbnb. Not so woo-woo that I forgot about the pandemic, now. 

But we did book several days at a place on the beach. And I'm counting down to going back.