Escapes

I'm a person who likes escaping. Escaping problems, fear, negative thoughts. Running away from them into myself and hiding in my shell. Are escapes always just a sign of weakness or they can helps us take a step towards our future?

Not so long ago, I read a facebook posts of one girl who broke up with her boyfriend, decided to leave everything behind here and move abroad. She was asking for an adivce from the travelers in the facebook group, asking for a support and help ... I've seen many posts like this and as always, the comments were full of "wise" aggresive comments which couldn't help her in any way and which just criticized her decision. A lot of people claimed that escaping doesn't bring her anywhere. That she should rather solve her problems here. That she can't run away from them. That she's naive. That you can never start a "new life" ...

Since I was kid, I've been dreaming about living abroad myself. Not because I don't like Czech Republic - there are a lot of things I'm not satisfied with - some Czech characteristics (which actually trigger me even in term of my behavior), current politics situation, education system ... anyway it's still my home, I have my family here, my friends and a lot of memories which are part of myself. But in some ways I feel like I don't belong here. And maybe even because of some of my "typically Czech" characteristics, I need differnet people, scenery, language and atmosphere ... which will help me to get rid of them. 

The last few years of high school, I was constantly tired, bored and every day when I came back home, I jus felt like sleeping and doing nothing. 8 years in one class with the same people, since the age of 11 until "adulthood" ... made me feel pretty anxious. 

I felt like the only memories I has were from the summer holiday and for the rest of the year, I was just stuck at one place all the time. Sure, it was my own mistake. But once you get to this point, it's hard to escape. I felt like everything was falling on me and sometimes I felt like I can't even take a breathe. Like when your house is so messy and you don't know where should you start with the cleaning ... and you imagine how easy would it be to just take all the stuff, throw them in the garbage or jsut blow up the whole house ... 

Even for this I was not sure if I should start the University or I should rather start a "new life" somewhere far, far away. I felt the urge to disappear. Get on a plane, overcome my own fears, step out of my comfort zone and find who I really am somewhere far from home. 

Sure, you can't run away from yourself. But if you spend most of your time in the company of the same people for a long time ... people, who know your past, who know who you used to be many years ago ... it can be really challenging to step out of this role. Even if you convince yourself, that you don't care about other people's opinion, you can still have the feeling that they expect some specific kind of behavior. You basically expect that yourself.

When you get to a new place, somewhere where you have to be on your own, where nobody knows you, it can be at least a bit easier to become someone "new". It's easier to build a new role in a new group of people and act according to how you feel and not according to how everyone (including you) expect from you after all those years. Because suddenly nobody expects anything from you.

Some escapes can help a person to come back to themselves.