Is the need to escape as prominent to you as it is to me?

Escape is a strong word. Don’t you think? As strong as it is, it is also powerful. I like the idea of escape. When I say that, I do not escape of the problems or the uncomfortable circumstances that life throws at me. I would rather see myself live and grow through them than escape. When I say that I like the idea of escape, I mean to say that I like the idea of getting to escape reality for a moment be it at difficult times or simpler ones. To escape does not have to mean to run away. When I say escape, I mean to acknowledge and see things in a different light than how you perceive it at any given moment.

When it’s time for me to walk through busy streets filled with hustling skin and bones, I like the thought of escape. I would rather like to watch myself drift among the bodies walking past me than walk past them myself. There are times when I like to escape reality more often than not just because reality is a little too much overwhelming for me. Given the choice to escape reality at any given moment would sound comforting to me than to actually having to live through it all. Probably, that’s what you get for being a thorough dreamer.

Life won’t really offer me the chance of escaping reality that, I know. But I believe that we all get to choose our escapades ourselves in life. Maybe some find the getaways in music; while some find it in the groove that their bodies move in when they listen to music. Maybe some find it in combining ingredients and making delicacies; while some find it in gardening and growing new lives. Maybe some people initiate their escapades by throwing and breaking stuffs while some run or ride or cycle miles and miles each day for that. Maybe some people smoke their lungs black and some drink their livers out in search of an escape. Maybe some people swear their hearts out while some eat a little too much to find a getaway. Maybe this is the reason why some people always have their heads buried among the pages of one book or another and maybe this is the reason why someone has a palette ready and a white canvas splattered with colors all over. While there are also some among us who work a little too much or a little too less than necessary and some who sleep a little too much or a little too less to escape reality. Maybe the escape that I am talking about here is what we call our hobbies. While saying this, there are some amongst us, who try their best to live through everything that life throws at them that they become numb to everything else. Maybe the escape that I am talking about here has become our habit and we have stopped looking at them as “gateways” a long, long time ago.

I found my escape in writing. Now I have come to understand that why I chose writing was because I was never really someone who could speak or talk what I actually mean to convey. Over years, I understood how the way I assembled my thoughts while I spoke were at times too jumbled up for everyone to really get what I meant and the idea of letting people have their own interpretations of my writings and giving them a freedom of choice felt a lot more comforting to me.

But how did writing become my escape?

Every time I sit down to write, I am either thinking a little too much than necessary or nothing at all.  Most of the times, I write so that I can clear out my head and make way for the mundane things in life. My mind likes to build up walls and create a silence-zone every time I write. Maybe that’s why writing grew on me as an escape. Maybe because I feel safe sheltered behind the words that I write, I write to escape. In the world that I have inside my head every time I write, I feel safe to be me; after all, that world is away from all the judgment that keeps flying out of everyone’s mouth in this reality. Also, writing things down has been helping me a lot in my growing up years. It has given me the solace, the strength and the escape that I need to get through everyday life. Writing gives me a perspective to life. It helps me see things and people in a different light and helps me think. Maybe this is the reason why writing became my escape.

I am not really sure why writing is an escape to me but it does make me a lot happier to know that writing means as much to me as it does for you to do the things you do to keep yourself sane in this manic world. Because as much as escapes are powerful, they are necessary.