JUST A MATTER OF GEOGRAPHY

Have you ever had a day, a week, or maybe even a month, when you wanted to run away, run away from the neighbour's barking dog and your barfing cat and your teenager's messy room and your feeling of inadequacy? You think that if you could just run out of the door, leave the iron on and the laundry on the line, and didn't even bother to grab your toothbrush, that life would be okay. You just went to the airport and they gave you a ticket to ... maybe Victoria (not much snow). You'd sit beside a small quiet person on the flight who didn't pry or snore or feel compelled to share the details of his gout with you.

When you arrived, you found a little yellow cottage in a quiet neighbourhood, with a white fence and lots of trees, fruit trees perhaps. This cottage is yours and you didn't have to unpack or jump through hoops to get it. It's just yours. And when you collapsed on the comfy tan couch with no cat or dog hair on it, you knew you had arrived at home.

No where in this house does dissatisfaction reside or loneliness or self-doubt or fear or grief or sorrow. It's just safe here and you fall asleep easily and waken refreshed and worry never bothers to wiggle its annoying self inside of you. It's a fresh start and you can be all the things you imagined yourself to be before life got in the way and shoved you off track.

I think of that person I would have been, wanted to be. She had an easy confidence about her that didn't borrow the energy of others but created her own. She understood the suffering of those she loved, cared deeply about it, but didn't own it and didn't feel responsible for it. She had a lightness to her step that came from knowing herself and smiling at the good bits and being patient with the not so good bits like a had-babies abdomen and her red face that blushes easily but not as often as it once did. She was the kind of person that felt joy for the small things like warm September days and fall flowers, Thanksgiving turkey that was moist and heaped high with savoury stuffing and creamy mashed potatoes, the sound of people laughing those genuine kind of laughs without knowing the reason because it's just the sound that matters. And someone has loved her for her whole adult life, put his arms out to shield her from the scary parts and saved her from uncertainty while she wrapped him up with her gentle hands that smoothed back the hair on his forehead and when she looked in his face, she saw all that was him and was glad for it.

In this new place, she could put her hand up and move to the front of the line. "It's my turn," she would say gently and everyone would nod and move aside while uttering, "Of course, of course."

I want to run away to this place because I'm certain it's all just a simple matter of geography.