What Do You Do When You Can't Take Flight?

It feels natural.  

Fight or flight right?

When all hell seems to break loose and life turns into a survival of the fittest competition, I find a deep-rooted sway in me to book it. I comb travel websites, start calculating pennies and wonder how quickly I can desert this town and leave my problems in a cloud of dust.

The issue with that is wherever I go, there I am. My arch-nemesis, the great failure within me seems to creep up in covered beds and dark rooms, taunting me with the very real fact that life is just not going how I planned.

I've ran before. I've failed bitterly, hid in shame and packed my bags to escape what I thought would be the fallout of my life. I've avoided personal relationships, shunned friends, ignored phone calls from family... all this in an effort to pretend that life is not what it is.

A sometimes dark, cold, shaky place.

A windy valley, cloaked under the shadow of death, reeking of decay and rot.

This morning I woke up to silence. To a tiny girl's nightmare, waking up shouting "Daddy!" To divorce papers stacked in a neat pile, signatures freshly dry.

And I asked God if I can please. run. Can I just pack us up in a car, move to Minnesota and pretend that my life isn't what it has become?

"No, my love, I never said it would be easy."

I asked him if I could just avoid friends who unintentionally act as reminders that my life is not going as I hoped. Can I just stop answering my phone, delete my internet presence and just lock the doors?

"No, my love, you're not supposed to do this alone."

I asked him if I can become invisible? To be immune to insult and embarrassment? To just fade into the background?

"No, little one, you have too much to do. To become. To begin. To realize. To experience."

So what do you do when you can't run?

What do I do?

Lock my heels in the rain-drenched earth, snap my shoulders back, wince at the sharp breezes against my cheeks, and wait it out.

Because here's what I can tell you from experience...

Running only magnifies the pain of whatever it is you're running from. Take my word for it.

It simply doesn't work.