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Nowhere, USA

Her escape.

By Victoria GrossPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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She sits quietly in her room, her thoughts everywhere. There is just so much going on in her life. She faces eviction, can't find a job, is in a loveless relationship, and has an unruly eighteen-year-old who defies her everyday.

She is broken, broken because of decisions she has made in her life. All the paths she chose in life were not wrong, but combined, they spelled disaster.

Desperate for answers, for help, she has no idea where to turn, what to do. She applies for job after job after job, to no avail. She goes and applies for assistance, something very humbling for her to do.

Her relationship with her boyfriend is just horrible. It never should have happened to begin with, but like every other stupid mistake she has made, here she is, six months into something she never wanted to begin with.

Why? Because it was convenient, because he made promises he has been unable to keep. Instead of making life easier, he makes it harder because of how unhappy she is.

There is zero attraction from her to him. And it's quite obvious, although that doesn't stop him from trying, EVERY SINGLE DAY. This, of course, makes her resent him. Occasionally, out of obligation, she will give in to his advances, all the while her mind is somewhere else or silently begging for it to just be over.

She isn't very nice to him. She isn't loving or even slightly romantic with him. She knows she should end the relationship, but she doesn't. Why? Because he provides her with transportation that she needs everyday, to escape him occasionally or to do something for her daughter, never anything for herself.

Her daughter, oh her daughter is everything to her. Her daughter treats her like shit one minute but then like gold when it's convenient for her. Regardless, she dedicates her life to her daughter. Why? Because without her, she believes she will be left with nothing.

She dreams of one day running away. To somewhere tropical, somewhere beautiful, somewhere new and exciting. Does she have the nerve to do it? To leave everything and everyone behind?

She picked a spot on a map once, ended up pointing to a small, rural town in South Carolina. She did some research on it. What the life is like there, the work, getting excited about having a new life.

She thinks, one day, maybe when her daughter moves out, she will do this. She will pack a small suitcase of personal things, pictures of her children, her grandchildren. She will purchase that ticket for a greyhound to some small rural town in Nowhere, USA. And she will start fresh. Start a new life. One that pleases her. Only her.

She will not shut out her family, for they are far too important. There will be visits and phone calls. She will just seperate herself from them and the life she once knew here, to have that start over she has been dreaming of for so long.

Still, she sits. And thinks of a happy, new life in her future. New friends, new job, new home.

She wonders if it's all actually possible. Could she really pack up and leave everything she knows? Would her children be ok without her?

What about everyone else? Her mother, whom she is sort of close to? Her father, whom she never sees or speaks to for that matter?

All she knows now is that she feels like she is suffocating from all the stress around her. She wants out. Out of her relationship, out of her many responsibilities here. She just needs to escape.

Her sister moved, to Florida, with her boyfriend. She left her children, left her family. She isn't close to her sister and has never envied her anything other than the fact that she escaped.

She wants to so badly, she can almost feel the warm southern sunshine on her skin. Smell the flowers in the soft, cool breeze. But she is afraid.

She is afraid because her daughter is not nearly prepared enough to face this big, ugly world all on her own. Her father is no help, and in all reality never has been. What if her daughter needs her?

She is scared because, although her father and her are not close, he is very ill. She doesn't know how much longer he will be here. She is scared of leaving and things being unsettled and never being able to fix it.

She worries about her mother, who has the weight of the world on her shoulders because her youngest son is a career criminal and an addict. How can she leave her mother alone with all the uncertainty that surrounds her?

At some point, she needs to let go of the baggage here. She knows this, yet, despite herself, she fights it. She makes excuses, all the while, drowning herself even more.

When is it ok to just pack it in and go live her life for herself? Should she put her life on hold until she is too old to enjoy it? Should she let the opinions of others really stop her from living her dream?

She doesn't think so. She thinks that, daily, she gets stronger in her determination and push to survive, for herself. She can't be scared to live. She can't be scared to dream.

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