So I'm an escapist.
I'd go so far as to say, if all accusations be rooted in truth, that at this point, I'm an escape artist.
My first escape were books. From the third week of grade one (I remember that week in every gory detail from the first time I got beat up during recess to the moment Mrs. Anne handed out our First Readers.) where we learned how the letters of the english alphabet string together to make these magic words.
I'd already been telling stories and listening to my grandmother read me polish fairy tales by then, but that week.. I achieved my first autonomy.
I went home, picked up my mother's "Drugs and side-effects" compendium, and proceeded to spend the next four hours asking her what a "stool" was, what a "soporific" was, and, admittedly, a handful of words I really don't remember. But dammit, I pronounced them. (albeit in my mother's twisted polish accent, and I still sometimes get the stresses wrong)
The next day we had a trip to the school library. This tiny, dark room of black steel bookshelves too tall to let the fluorescent lighting in, too tall to let you see anything but the rows and rows of books.
The librarian was quiet and didn't bother you much.
They didn't have many children's books, this being the library shared with the much larger high school - but they did have Shakespeare, Isaac Asimov, Madeleine L'Engle, and all the classics.
The next four years had me hidden in a corner between bookshelves making my way through marching reams of words that I barely understood - I'd only just learned english.
By the end of those four years I had the strangest vocabulary of olde english and a serious confusion as to what was "true" and what wasn't. In seventh grade when asked to write down the smallest things I could think of, I wrote:
"Atoms, molecules, mitochondria, farandolae". I got called in to the principal's office on that one. "What's Farandolae?"
I dunno, I read it in "a wrinkle in time". You mean mitochondria are real, farandolae aren't? What's a mitochondria, then? What do they look like? What're they made of..."
We're just going to skip over the "how I ended up a science geek story" - let's just say the reason I have to know how everything works was magnified a thousand times that day...
So I've been living in magical worlds since I've lived in Canada.
I've been a faerie, a dragon, countless coloured unicorns, elves, soldiers, orphans, I've died a thousand times in wars - but always, always, with my heart in one piece, and my head filled with romantic righteousness.
Never in those million adventures did I sell the stones on which I stood, for anything.
I escaped elementary school bullies with books. I escaped my suffocating parents, with books. I escaped concrete-jungle monotony with role-playing games, I escaped emotional asphyxiation with sex, drugs, and violence.
I escaped pain with anger, I escaped loneliness with beguiling masks and smiling thighs.
I escaped mental anguish with BBSes, I escaped the world my father was preparing for me (or me for) with dreams and ideals and sci-fi adventures and online message-boards.
I escaped being crushed by authority by playing anarchista.
I'm tired of running now.
I got tired of running when I met Tony, and realized that maybe some of those faerie tales could come true.
But I ran from him, too. I moved to France for a year, running, running, but wishing that when I returned I wouldn't have to run anymore.
I ran from him in the end. But he's happier now, so the only guilt is that I had to run...
And then I met John, who lives life as he wants. Who's parents taught him about life, and not responsability. He has problems making rent, I have problems looking beautiful people in the eye.
No, I'm never going to stop gaming. It's not just an escape, it's a stretch, a meander, a creative outburst. It's an extra spice.
I'm not going to stop writing, it's an escape, but it's an escape to something.
I'll never abandon my books or my dreams - but there's one thing I started doing in high school.
I started building. I stopped ducking and hiding and started building new worlds. Gaming taught me the tricks, drugs taught me the possibilities, winter alleyway resorts and trash-bin fireplaces taught me the strength, the fuel.
I'm living, now. I'm still afraid, sometimes, always worried that one of the strings I'm using to navigate this universe by is going to falter or snap, and sometimes they get tangled...
But I'm ALIVE. In a world that I built.
I'm working at a job that I worked my way to. I'm finishing school that I paid my way through. I'm loving people the way I think they should be loved, and I'm sitting back and smelling fresh jasmine buds because I know where to find them.
This is my world, and I'm building it. And the one thing my paltry escapes have taught me is - the best escape is change.
So I'm changing things. And with people like Steven who'll never let me say "die", people like Methybeth and Affemann who remind me that I'm not alone and that this is not impossible and that maybe I'm not a terrible person if they're such wonderful people...
With people like lady who unconditionally love my smile, people like John who keep me spurred on their impossible energy, people like Kegboy that keep my priorities in tow and remind me of eris and her apples, people like Chuckies who loved me even though I didn't deserve it, and the thousands of people that I'll never forget...
I've already escaped.
Now I'm just building a better world.
Thanks to you.
And you're always welcome.