Flight Risk

I don't know what's keeping me in this chair.  Whatever it is I imagine it to be the strength of a hair.  If I so much as indulge one thought that tether will break and I will find myself at a bus stop making the greatest mistake of my life - one that I would never recover from.

But the desire is overwhelming.  The desire to quit is more than I can take.  I imagine a life of freedom where I am responsible for no one - where I don't have to monitor my every word, facial expression and tone of voice. I beg to just be myself (whoever that is) and do things I want to do without the guilt of how it might negatively impact someone else.  I want to scream and hit walls and throw glass and curse loudly.  And then I want to be done and not have any consequences.  To just walk away and find myself unleashed from guilt, shame, obligation and responsibility.  I'm sick of doing the right thing for everyone else.  I'm so done dying to self.

So why am I still here?

Because here is the lesser of two evils.

I'm not trying to destroy anyone.  And leaving would destroy my son.  It would infuriate my husband and break the heart of my youngest.  But it would destroy my oldest.  I can't imagine that my presence is really of benefit to him but my absence would be deafening.  And as much as I want out - to just run away - I could never survive the guilt of hurting my husband and my children.  I would live in a whole different kind of agony.  So what's the point of trading one misery for another?

It makes me wonder what the difference is between me and those women who just go out for a pack of cigarettes one day and never come back.  How do they live with themselves?  I wonder, since I don't have the luxury of a silent conscience, what will it take to become content where I am?  What would have to change to bring me some peace in these circumstances?

I believe the answer is in the Bible.  I know it is.  But I never seem to be on the right page.