I used to just leave.
Pack up and go somewhere else. Different state, different air, different everything. It wasn't impulsive exactly — it was responsive. The feeling would build until staying felt like the least possible option, and leaving was the only thing that made the pressure change.
Then my son was born. And at some point, leaving became the irresponsible move. Not immediately, but steadily — the kind of shift that happens without an announcement. Suddenly I had a life I couldn't just pick up and carry somewhere else.
So I started moving the furniture instead.
It starts before I do anything about it. I can feel it coming — almost like a wave, but not a water wave. More like ping pong balls filling the outline of my body. My mind begins to unsettle, thoughts bouncing back and forth without landing on anything, a slowly rising cacophony like a second-grade classroom when nobody stops it.
It feels itchy. Not a scratch-able itch. Just everywhere, can't-sit-still itchy. I find myself messing with my hair, rubbing my neck, sighing, moving my ankles, wiggling my feet. Frustration without a target. Energy without direction.
And underneath all of it, one clear signal:
I need to go somewhere else.
But I can't. So I have to make where I am different enough that it counts.
There's a logic to it, even if it looks irrational from the outside.
Turning around doesn't help. Going to a different room doesn't help. The feeling is too big for that — it needs real change, real difference, something that requires effort and produces a result I can see. Moving the couch to the other wall. Rearranging the bedroom. Reconsidering the whole layout of the apartment.
Sometimes I change things to be unconventional. Not because unconventional is better, but because different is the point. I'm seriously considering moving my bedroom into the living room. We'll see.
And while I'm at it — while I'm already in motion, already burning the energy that had nowhere to go — I found a refurbished hard drive in the garage. I could load Linux onto it. It could run while I'm doing the other things. Even the restless energy has to be doing two things at once.
Even the release valve has to be productive.
It works. Usually. At least enough.
The further the change, the longer it lasts — which is why I used to leave the state. But it was always temporary. I always knew that. The leaving was never going to hold it forever. I was just buying time until I could breathe again.
What's different now is that it happens less. I'm starting to actually love my space — the one I'm already in. The caged feeling still comes, but not with the same urgency it used to have. Not with the same demand.
I'm not sure yet what that means. But I think it has something to do with what I'm slowly learning — the difference between changing where you are and choosing where you are.
The furniture I move is the same furniture either way.
I can't leave. So I make where I am different enough to stay in.
If you're new here: this is what I mean by returning to self—ordinary moments, honest noticing, and small choices that don't require self-abandonment. Start here: Why 55 Houseplants.
