Humble Honeysuckle #2
Hindsight is never 20/20. Hindsight is always blurred the way we need it to be. And when the everyday gets overwhelming hindsight is always right where I need it to be. If the art of processing stress is escapism, then what better place to run to than your own perfect past.
Sometimes my escape can wait until the workweek is over. I go down to the beach with a lounge chair half way in the surf and close my eyes. For the next eight hours I unwind on an escape to when things were easier. As the waves roll in and out over me I can imagine body surfing competitions with my younger brothers; or as I wiggle my toes in the sand under the water I can see my cousin and I squealing and digging in the dirt before the hermit crabs that each wave brings in disappear again. For the rest of the day I am 10 years old and stress does not exist. For the rest of the day things are perfect.
Other weeks, when things get bad, I can escape to the past my closing by eyes in the office . . .just for a moment. I escape back to college where for a few minutes I am the confidant straight A student that everyone wanted to be; I am hotter, thinner, smarter, more popular and so on. For a few minutes I allow my vision of the past to fuel my ego and self-confidence. And when I come back I’m a different woman, a woman infinitely more capable than the one who had been at my desk moments before.
The best part about my escapes is that even though I know that to some degree I’m lying to myself, that the pasts I return to were no more perfect than the present I’m leaving, they still give me hope. Hope that in another year or two the stressful moment I’m running away from will be the perfect moment I come running back to for solace and stregth.
Sometimes my escape can wait until the workweek is over. I go down to the beach with a lounge chair half way in the surf and close my eyes. For the next eight hours I unwind on an escape to when things were easier. As the waves roll in and out over me I can imagine body surfing competitions with my younger brothers; or as I wiggle my toes in the sand under the water I can see my cousin and I squealing and digging in the dirt before the hermit crabs that each wave brings in disappear again. For the rest of the day I am 10 years old and stress does not exist. For the rest of the day things are perfect.
Other weeks, when things get bad, I can escape to the past my closing by eyes in the office . . .just for a moment. I escape back to college where for a few minutes I am the confidant straight A student that everyone wanted to be; I am hotter, thinner, smarter, more popular and so on. For a few minutes I allow my vision of the past to fuel my ego and self-confidence. And when I come back I’m a different woman, a woman infinitely more capable than the one who had been at my desk moments before.
The best part about my escapes is that even though I know that to some degree I’m lying to myself, that the pasts I return to were no more perfect than the present I’m leaving, they still give me hope. Hope that in another year or two the stressful moment I’m running away from will be the perfect moment I come running back to for solace and stregth.
posted by Anonymous at 1:44 PM
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