I need an escape.

I need a chance to let everything drop from my shoulders.

Hiking, plodding along, even feeling that burn in my lungs clears everything away.

The only thing I have to focus on is the here and now.

I only have to feel how my muscles strain and pull.

I only have to worry about breathing in and out.

I don’t have to worry about where I’m going most of the time.

As long as I mark the sun, I can find my way back.

I don’t have to stress about my future,

don’t have to plan out future interactions with people.

It’s an escape from reality to reality

if that makes any sense.

I need this time and this place.

I need to move and go somewhere without really knowing how I’m going to get there.

I can’t live all stifled in four walls slowly dying under fluorescent lights.

I can’t pretend for long that I’m happy stuck behind a desk staring at a computer screen for hours at a time.

I have to get out and be in the trees and the mountains.

I have to feel the air and the sun.

Without it I might just fade and disappear.