There was a tickle in Sam’s mind that she couldn’t ignore. A buzzing that wouldn’t go away, whose source she couldn’t find. There was an itch she was desperate to scratch, if only she could find it.

All she could say for certain was that she was out of sorts. A life she’d always found accceptable if not thrilling suddenly felt unbearable. Work she’d previously enjoyed, she now resented. Things that used to make her laugh, now made her impossibly sad. Just the other night at trivia, she had to excuse herself to the bathroom because she was on the verge of tears. She felt like life was happening to her, that she was passively watching it go by rather than living it.

When she looked at her boyfriend, Scott, a man she’d adored for nearly three years, all she could see was everything he wasn’t. She knew she was being unreasonable with him, unkind even. Scott was the one person who asked almost nothing of her, the only person who seemed concerned with whether or not she was happy. Despite that, he’d come to represent her inability to fully grow up and spread her wings. In a way, he was what she settled for: the best she could do in this same old place. Like a humid Southern evening, there was a heavy, oppressive energy that seemed to hang over her, following her every step.

Sam thought about all the ways she’d always lived her life for others. She’d opted for a college close to home so she could come home every weekend to keep her mother company. There was a persistant loneliness in the house since her dad had died. She could barely stand being there but felt it was the least she could do. She’d passed on a job out of state. A good job with better pay and benefits, in a new, exciting city. Her sister had left town and never looked back, so Sam felt duty-bound to stick around and be there for her mother. Of course Sam had given her sister her blessing but she’d expected her to put up more of a fight. Instead, her sister hugged her, packed a bag, and never looked back. It seemed everyone was happy to let Sam be the family caretaker, to always do what needed to be done, without ever asking if it was what she wanted.

Why had she started contemplating her happiness in the first place? A few months ago she’d gone to her best friend’s wedding, had acted as maid of honor. Kim & Sam had been connected at the hip since 8th grade when a period mishap threatened death by humiliation for Sam. Kim offered her a maxi pad and a flannel to tie around her waist. They’d gone through life together ever since. Both stayed home for college and got jobs in the town where they’d grown up. Everything felt like it was falling into place, but then Kim met Mark and followed him to the city of his new job and they began creating a life Sam had never considered possible for herself. Travel, fancy dinners, house hunting. A wedding so beautiful it made Sam’s eyes sting. The wedding night wasn’t when her discontent began, she knew, but it was the moment it began to feel like ivy around her throat.

Of course, none of this was obvious to Sam for some time. She just thought she was in a rut that, try as she might, she couldn’t pull herself out of. All of these realizations came to her slowly, though she still didn’t know what any of it meant. It felt like a puzzle whose box she’d thrown away so it wasn’t clear what the finished product should look like anyway. It was as if there was a surge of electricity running through her blood at all times, like she might come out of her skin if she didn’t solve the mystery of what was wrong with her.

Then one night she awoke with a start, as if a nightmare had disturbed her slumber. She woke up, heart racing, gasping for breath, with a sudden clarity. She needed space. She needed a new perspective. She needed to leave this place, these people. It was so obvious, she couldn’t believe it had taken her this long to reach this conclusion. She would do something for herself for once. Perhaps for the first time. She would dream again, consider what could be instead of insisting she couldn’t possibly change.

In her most honest moments, Sam knows that she’s as much to blame for what her life has become as anyone else is. There was a comfortability in living for other people, in never making a decision that was solely for her. She never had to take any risks or responsibility if things didn’t work out. In truth, it allowed her to safely stay a victim of circumstance, to wear the perfume of self-pity and live only by the motto of “what could have been.” It made her sick, now, to recognize how pathetic she’d been.

Once it had taken hold, the idea couldn’t be quieted.

She sat up in bed and fired up her laptop. She was checking flights to anywhere and nowhere in particular: Seoul, Warsaw, Milwaukee. She had no particulars in mind, except that she needed to be somewhere else as quickly as possible. There were details to work out, she knew, like money, a job, where exactly she wanted to go. For a brief moment she considered moving closer to Kim, thought about asking her if she could stay with them for a bit until she figured things out more. As quickly as the thought came, she knew she’d never mention it to Kim. While she couldn’t explain it yet, she knew she had to do this without a comfort blanket. Comfort, she could see, was slowly killing her. Strangling her little by little. No, if she were to ever truly find herself, know herself in any real way, she would need to go where she was a stranger to everyone. A place where there were no expectations and a blank slate.