If I had to pluck an adjective from the air to best describe me I would handpick “guilty.” Maybe I’d scan the skyline for supplementary modifiers such as “obligated” “overly-responsible” and perhaps “dramatic depressive” if I felt especially verbose and I had really long arms. I certainly would not choose “adventurous,” nor “spontaneous,” and never in a million reaches “carefree.” I’d watch those words float around and land on more deserving people, light and unapologetic upon their broader shoulders.

Tell me, is it a curse or a blessing to know exactly what your problem is, exactly what words in this lifetime you may never reach no matter how high you stretch? Is it better to just wander among them blissfully unaware of their collective presence, or would you rather know them and face them even if it meant constantly cowering in their shadows?

I do not leave. I do not abandon anyone emotionally, my friends steady at my side from the day we meet. I do not leave anyone physically, my hometown mere minutes from my driveway, my parents a sneeze away. I don’t wander dark streets alone at night. I don’t fly off on vacation for a week, with no one to drive my rental car or read the map or lie solid and predictably at my side in my bed. If it was up to me, I’d never leave the house at all and yes I know how unhealthy that is, I’ve seen Oprah. Part of this inertia is born of fear, but a much larger part is straight-up guilt. I just can’t do or say or think a single thing without wondering how it’s impacting you, what you think of me, the gajillion ways I’m so far from perfect. I bear an unbidden responsibility for everyone else’s feelings and it doesn’t matter how often or how sincerely you tell me it’s unnecessary. I smile as quickly as I can so that you will never feel discomfort in my presence. I smile until my cheeks hurt and no one is looking before I drop it like an armload of bricks and always, always a toe or two gets smashed.

I am fully aware of how silly the whole thing is. I get that no one else can make me feel this way, that nobody asked me to proclaim myself Keeper of the Feelings. I get that it’s all about me and no one else. I get that I set myself up for failure on a daily basis. And, yet? I don’t know how to change.

Today I looked up and stared straight into the sun and plucked “Go” from the spot where words think they’re safe from me, the pool of floating phrases I never dare directly face like “Me First” and “Who Cares What They Say” and “Don’t Look Back.” I plucked that unfamiliar word and I slipped it into my pocket and though I feel it pulsing at my thigh I’m ignoring its burn and for once I’m just going. I’m going where it’s above freezing and where the sun isn’t such a snobby bitch and where I won’t be anyone’s wife or mother or daughter or friend. I’m going where I’ve never gone before and if I weren’t as terrified and flayed-flat guilty over the whole thing then there would be no point at all, now, would there.

Would there.

See you in a week.