can we pretend

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."

In a lot of ways, maybe I'm getting out of Montreal for the summer as a form of self punishment and self preservation at the same time.

I'm the flight type. I always believe that sooner or later, people leave. The people that you care about and keep close to you are going to leave. I live my life so that I'm always the one walking away first, to save myself the pain of being the one left behind.

When I get too comfortable and start to settle in too much, I force myself to leave everything behind and walk away from it, before somebody can do it to me.

I'm supposed to be this self sufficient, independent girl who can walk away from anything, anyone, any time. But in the past year I've developed these attachments and roots--the kind that I swore I'd never have. They caught me by surprise. Crept up on me, attaching themselves fiber by fiber and by the time I realized it, it was too late. They had a hold on me.

Everything that I have in my life I've had to fight for. Really fight for. Things were getting too settled, too calm here. I was content living in the basement section of my parents' house, with my own little routine and way of life. Go to work an easy job, get a big pay check, buy lots of cool things. Rinse, repeat. It was time to burst the bubble.

6 years ago I was in a bad place. A place bad enough that sometimes the clutches still reach up and grab me for days at a time, trying to pull me back in. The girl inside of me pulled me through that. She was strong, fearless, independent. She relied on nobody. That girl was strong.

I need to find her again.

I leave on Saturday, at 4AM. Half of me is so incredibly excited. The other half is wondering if that girl is still in there, or if she left, too.