Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.

This is the beginning of the year of postings. I actually remembered. Starting today, I plan on posting one entry a week from now until next July.

I have this urge to run away from my life. There has been too much sorrow lately; so much that I don’t notice the good things that are surely happening as well. I want to hide, to be alone, and there isn’t time. I’m watching the movie Elizabethtown. It’s nearly over and Orlando Bloom is running around the flea market, looking for Kirsten Dunst. I’m certainly not looking for Kirsten Dunst, but I think I am looking for something. I just wish I knew what it was.

If I had the money to do it, I’d hop in the car and just drive away. I love my husband and my children and grandchildren, but this is a trip I’d take alone. Just me and a bunch of CDs with my favorite music.

I’d go looking for those places that people seldom notice and rarely visit. I’d visit museums and tourist traps. I would stop to eat when I felt like it and stop to sleep when I got tired. I’d check out big cities and small towns. I think it would be refreshing and invigorating, and when I came back, I’d be ready to go on. Of course few people get to do in real life what people get to do in movies.

Despite the fact that I have a really good job, I can’t afford to “run way” even for a few hours because there’s never any money left over. So I go on from day to day, building up a sleep deficit that I’ll never be able to pay back. Getting more and more emotionally exhausted by the day. I eat too much, I sleep too little, and I don’t know how to change it.

There is something very soothing about writing. I’m sitting here in the darkened living room (it’s daytime outside, but dark in here) with the television running the background (Elizabethtown has given way to The Truman Show) and the physical act of hitting the keys and seeing the words appear on the screen is soothing.

I’m trying to think of a cool way to close this off, but I can’t. So I’m just going to end it. Here.

See you next week…