330. Escape: Write about where you like to go to escape from it all.
To escape from it all, I’ve had different places depending on the phase of my life. As a child, I climbed the trees or sat on top of a tiki statue in my back yard. In my tweens and teens, I escaped into the stories of books and discovered the joys of long bike rides to where ever I wanted to go. I don’t think I had much escape anywhere in college and grad school since it was all so relentless. As a young mom, I escaped into exercise but as an older mom, I escaped into yard work. I loved spending the whole day trimming, watering, and sweeping. Post-kids/divorce, I escape by listening to audiobooks, sitting in a bathtub, or hiking.
I think the debilitating depression brought on by the pandemic was because escape mechanisms no longer worked. I could escape for the length of the soak or hike but had to live in the anxiety-filled gray hole of lockdown. Escape was no relief. I am thankful that we are beyond lockdown so physical and emotional escape tactics work again.
