RUN FROM YOUR LIFE!!

Nope. I'm not English impaired. I don't mean "run FOR your life," I mean what I say - RUN FROM YOUR LIFE!!

If you're one of the fortunate ones who looks around your life and has a more or less stable family and good friends and a job you don't absolutely loathe, this blog isn't for you. If you're one of the truly fortunate ones who grew up in a loving, stable home where your hopes and dreams were supported and there was an even handed approach to your parents' parenting and you now love your life, married your best friend, have a job you look forward to, then this blog will probably make you mad at me and prompt you to leave me comments like, "Life is what you make it" or "why so negative?" I don't even want to hear from you types cuz you don't get it and you never will. Go be wonderfully sane somewhere else.

No. This blog post is for those of you who look around your lives and wonder - how the fuck did I get here? This is not what I wanted. Now what do I do?

I'm no guru. I don't have answers. I'm just giving my opinions on this unpredictably snowy morning. I woke up with a brilliant epiphany today. I have spent the past several years watching other people have temper tantrums that last one, two years. They do whatever they want. They run from relationships, run into bad ones, leave them, yank everyone around and they seem fine. As a matter of fact - they don't see the blood shed around them. Those people dare to get angry when you finally put your foot down and tell them you've had enough. Those truly clueless people fall into another entirely different category - they're the blameless!! Yes, the clueless blameless! They're like idiot savants, only much less attractive.

However, I think I've learned something from this behavior. I've concluded that if more of us who are sick of our relatives or tired of being stepped on or hate our jobs, just walked out and went on our merry ways, we might all be happier. How many times haven't you felt like irresponsibly chucking it all and skipping out of town? If you've read this far, I'll guess 100s, if not 1000s of times. But most of us are too responsible to actually do that. After all, people are counting on us. But see... that's just it. This morning I woke up and took stock. Who exactly are these people counting on me? In what way am I keeping myself from doing things I'd like to do because I'm so concerned about what other people need from me? So it occurred to me. I need to run from my life.

They say the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results. Well, if you apply that to the way your live or the way you approach your relationships, it should also apply, right? So, let's say you're a mother who keeps loaning her irresponsible son money each time he bangs up his car, loses his glasses, breaks someone's window, etc. Each time he smiles his huge smile and says, "wow Mom, thanks for getting me outta that one... you're the best!" You lecture him a few minutes, he nods, pays back $20 of the loan and then the cycle repeats. Eventually, you are LIVID with him. Loathing your own son but feeling guilty that you loathe him. Feeling that mothers shouldn't feel this way towards their sons. So you bottle it up and keep doling out the cash. Your son has figured this out and keeps behaving the same way, lecture or not. You know what that mom needs to do?

RUN FROM HER LIFE!!

Either literally or figuratively, she needs to get out. Because out is the only way to break this cycle. She either needs to find a way to stop loaning him the money and stop the empty lectures or quite literally - move out. Not take him with her and let him learn the hard way. Because if she's truly miserable, continuing this behavior will not result in happiness.

And that's what I'm talking about. Psychologists would take weeks, months, years, to get someone to understand why she's allowing herself to be a doormat. Why she can't seem to draw boundaries. Then she'd have to learn to undo all those years of bullshit. I say, take a short cut.

RUN FROM YOUR LIFE.

Just don't be there. If you're not there, they can't come to you. They can't abuse your good faith. No need to feel guilty. Just go somewhere else for a while. Reset. Regroup. Relearn who you are and just what got you to this state. And then maybe you can start over. Or maybe you'll get enough distance between you and your life so you can view it like an outsider and return to it with a clearer view of things.

I know this is all terribly impractical advice for most people. But if I can figure out how to do it, I'm considering taking this advice and trying it on for size. If I do, I'll blog again from some undisclosed location.