Escape.

I recently came across a former student's thoughts on a class I previously taught in the States, referring to his need for addictive substances:

"i know you already know this but i'll answer
VICODIN for "sherise's class LA 55 "Liberal arts class"
and also VALIUM and half a water bottle of stoli with mango juice, i know it's a fatal combination but hey it's LA 55 with sherise."

He wrote anonymously and certainly wasn't intending that his instructor (me) would see this, but I did.  And no, I won't launch into a discussion of my delicate ego, or how I'm unreasonably vain and sensitive when anything critical is said of me.  I think we can all understand the the lingering pride that resides in each of us.

What I will make reference to is the denial that surfaces when we encounter conflict (defined here as anything that arises to thwart a certain plan or goal of ours--say something that doesn't go our way--in the form of a person, situation, etc).  This student of mine certainly wanted to escape the reality of my class.  And though it seems as if his measures were extreme, I wonder at my own escape plans that I've hatched over the years, remembering that as a young child I often threatened with the literal running away, but never got further than hiding out in the trunk of my family's station wagon in the basement.

I'm learning that I can't run far because I am ultimately kept.  And even more to run this race fair and square, resisting those easy shortcuts that seem to set me off course.