My first instinct is to run.
Because that’s what I do. That’s what I’ve always done. When I was younger and my life kept changing against my will, I learned instead of being sad about change to flip that change to my advantage; to expect it; to cause it; to inflict change on myself. I realized my own capacity to quickly adjust to change and I decided to use change in order to keep myself from having to deal with adverse situations and people. (I think this is why I could never fathom suicide. To me, people are not hopeless, situations are. If I don’t like a situation, I will change my role in it.).
If I didn’t like a job, I’d quit. If I were tired of dealing with a boyfriend, I dumped him. When I hated my high-school my junior year, I transferred. When my car broke down, I was fired from my job, my boyfriend was driving me nuts and I was risking not graduating because I never went to gym class, I moved. I didn’t even say goodbye before packing up my car, leaving Atlanta and moving back to Ohio.
Now, faced with another series of situations that I feel I can’t take another moment of, there is something familiar inside of me that says “run”. Like an instant reflex to a sound of a gunshot, my body wants to flee and let my mind and rational thinking catch up later. But maybe that’s not the right reaction.
Maybe my basic instinct is not my best instinct.
Instead of running from this, what if I stayed and came out on the other side triumphant?
STAY. That scares me. Unnerves me. Seems almost impossible to me. Is there a situation that can improve without my simply disposing of its place in my life? Can I uproot pain without uprooting myself?
Is my perceived strength just incredible endurance that sustains me while I run as far and as fast away from undesirable things?
I want things to change. I want them to be different. I am unsatisfied with things as they are and dreading what is to come. I want to leave. But maybe leaving (at least right now) isn’t the answer. Maybe it is time for me to mature and handle adverse situations without simply running from them.
I’m going to stay, work through this completely, learn the lessons no matter how hard they may be and become a better person for it.
I’m strong. I have endurance…I can endure this.
…So help me, God.
Alissa Henry 