Dear Melissa,
Sometimes I wish I could just run away. Not like I did when I was a kid: an overflowing suitcase and lots of noise so everyone knew I was leaving and would be sure to come get me. No. Something quiet. Something stealthy. Something final.
I want to take the two people I love more than anything in this world, pack them into the car, and just drive away. Leave my mortgage, and my car payments. Fuck the bank. Leave all my things that I’ve collected over the years that have never really brought my happiness anyway. Leave my friends, leave my family, just leave it all behind. I want to show up in some new city — somewhere plain and simple — with a new name and absolutely no responsibility to anything except the two people in this world that I give it to freely and wholeheartedly.
Guilt gets me though. I could never go through with it. There’s be one person I’d keep in touch with, one soul I’d reach out to just so they I was okay. And that would be the start of it. Then I’d realize all of the commitments I was leaving behind and how many people would be let down by it, and I’d back out.
And I wonder: even if I did pull it off. Make a clean break. Never looked back. What would happen after I finally got there, settled my self in, made a life for my family and I? Would I find myself 5 years later in new surroundings, with new friends, a new job, and new faces, and the same need for escape from it all?
Love Always,
Daniel