Be Back Soon

I put my ashes in a time capsule a couple towns over. Twenty years from now, it will be opened. The spectators' curiosity will certainly lead to a DNA test of some kind. In their records they'll find my name, Olivia Green. I'll finally be declared legally dead, murdered, or so they'll assume. I will finally be able to live a life untethered to this world, to its responsibilities..

I've spent years dreaming of that kind of release, I suppose that's why they call it "longing".. When that train comes today I won't be waiting idly by admiring the graffiti.. Last stop, anywhere.

  I figure I can spend the next ten, maybe fifteen years just traveling, anywhere they don't already know my name. After that, even my family will see me as a ghost. They may mourn, they may seek vengeance, but they won't find me, but I hope they find some sort of closure, or at least something resembling it.

I know it's selfish, but I think I deserve to be. I've spent the past eight years of my life completely dedicated to my family, my husband, and our sons, but sometimes dedication feels more like enslavement..

As I write this, my husband is picking our sons up from their elementary school. I've written him a note that I plan on putting on our kitchen counter, it says simply, "We needed milk, be back soon. Love You." He's a great father, Jonah, and a great husband. That's why I have to go through this ruse. Why I had to chop off my own hand, and also why I had to incinerate it out back in our fire pit. The reason I plan to make a 911 call, informing the dispatcher that I've been kidnapped, when in reality I'd already be an hour outside of town on a train to nowhere.

I can't let Jonah know I chose to leave him and our boys, it would devastate him. But if he believed I was dead, he could make it through that, he's a holy man, he would chalk it up to "God's plan", and in a way maybe this still was God's plan..

I haven't packed a bag, that would make my plan pretty obvious. All I plan on taking with me is this journal, my purse, and the outfit that I'm currently wearing, a white t-shirt and jeans. My husband saw me earlier this morning wearing my blue dress, the one with sunflowers all over it. It's his favorite so he'll remember, that's what people will be on the lookout for when the search for me begins. By that time I'll be blending in hours from here, nobody will notice me, and nobody will find me.

I can't use my credit cards and risk being tracked down, but I have a couple hundred dollars that I've saved for today, it should get me through until I can find work wherever I end up. I do plan, however, on making one stop, just outside of town, the Mullwood Cemetery. It's where my mother is buried, I have to see her one last time, I may never have the chance again. Maybe if I'm lucky twenty years from now they'll bury my ashes beside her. "Olivia Green, Beloved Mother and Wife,1988-?"

As I've already said, I don't have a clue where I'll end up. Maybe somewhere near the ocean, I've never been surfing before.. Or maybe somewhere cold, really cold, blizzards in July cold.. Or eventually, when they stop looking for me, I'll visit another country. Ireland, or France, or maybe India, I've always wanted to see the Taj Mahal in person..

  I have no clue, but every option is on the table, it's been a long time since I've felt like I have a choice. That's what I have now, a choice, freedom, all I have to do is walk out the door. I want it so badly, so why does this office chair feel like an anchor? Probably the same reason the pictures on my desk are face down, pictures of the family I'll soon abandon. The family I love with all my heart, but not more than I love myself.. I don't deserve them, they'll be better off without me.

If I stay I know what will happen, I'll go crazy, like my mother did. I'll make my problems their problems. I'll hurt the people I care about. I'll drink myself to death and I'll see the look in my boy's eyes as they slowly watch their mother spiral out of control and wonder why they aren't enough. They don't deserve that, I have to go.

There father will take good care of them, he always has. He would help them get through the loss of their mother, help them make some sense of this chaotic world. He'll be a light for them in the darkness of loss and confusion.

After some time, I hope Jonah finds the strength to move on, to give his love to someone who will give it back better than I ever could. I pray that the boys get a new mother, one who can do what I no longer can, and I pray that she isn't as selfish as I am. I need to believe that their lives will be better, or I won't stand up from this chair, I won't leave.

One day, somehow, maybe I'll get word of them having kids, or getting married. And maybe in that moment it'll hit me, I'll realize what I've given up. I'll wallow in self pity at the thought that I'll die alone when I didn't have to, I'll fall asleep every night with their faces in my dreams, and I'll awaken empty, a shell-of-a-woman who ran away from a good life in search for something that didn't exist.

Then again maybe I will find what I'm looking for. One day I could find it out there in the unknown, on a beach, or a mountain, or another country, I could find myself. No one will ever read this, I guess I'm writing it to try and justify my actions in my own eyes, to trick myself into thinking I'm not a horrible mother, a horrible wife, a horrible person.. And subconsciously perhaps, I'm writing it to convince myself to stay, but as I look down at the cauterized stump where my hand used to be I realize that line has been crossed, now is the time. I'll take one last look at the pictures on my desk, and then I'll leave, I have a train to catch..