Step #1: Karma

Are you and your conscience in constant disagreement?

Is your guilt keeping you up at night?

Do you always feel like you deserve every bad thing that’s happening to you?

As if you had it coming?

Yes to all the above?

Okay then! Lets call it karma!

Everything! Anything! Just go ahead and say karma is happening to me.

Step #2: Bad Timing

Do you remember that person you met and felt like you had a connection but never really went in details or gave yourself a chance?

Or do you remember that relationship or relationships that got all screwed up with messy break up and hurt feelings and unfinished business to last for decades, all because you weren’t mature enough to handle the situation correctly?

Yeah? Okay! Lets call it bad timing! And we can all agree when I say that timing is a bitch!

Step #3: No biggy!

Do you know that thing you worked so hard to achieve and then you did? That thing you always dreamed of and now you have it? You know how everyone will want to celebrate with you and put you in the spotlight but you are a very socially awkward person and you’re also afraid to seem like a show off? Simply go with “its no biggy guys”.

Do you know that time when everything in your life went to shit? You lost your phone, your laptop broke down, your car got stolen, you got fired from your job and you failed in that course you were taking?

You know how everyone will walk on egg shells around you, expecting you to have a mental break down… simply go with “its no biggy”.

Step #4: Let’s pretend this never happened!

Sent a really stupid text to your crush? Pretend it never happened.

Had a big fight with your sister and you’re gonna run in to her in that family reunion over the weekend? Pretend it never happened.

Forgot to text or call your friend back after you ignored their text or call? Pretend it never happened.

Step #5: The Bubble!

There is no shame in it. Most of the time reality gets too much to handle. You either wanna hide from it. Or you don’t want to talk about it. Or you simply – like all of us – hate it.

So I have an advice: retreat to your bubble.

Be it a place you create in your mind, like a safe haven, quite, cozy, lots of green space, a tree-swing, a waterfall…etc.

Or something you like to do so much that you lose track of time and your sense of surroundings, hence, escaping reality.

For example: puzzling, weaving, needle artcraft, DIY stuff, coloring…etc.

Or build a fort in your bed with all the pillows you have around the house, surround yourself with things you love, things that make you feel happy or good.

Painting by Elizabeth Jane Gardner

Step #6: I AM FINE

Its easy to escape reality and retreat to your bubble, or pretend it never happened or deny everything in your own mind.

But its not easy when people around you keep asking you what’s wrong or how are you doing. Its even worse if they know what’s the problem, they will keep asking for updates and asking you how are you dealing with things.

The only reply is “I’m FINE”. And walk away.

You look sad/ sick/ tired/ pale/ upset/ stressed, are you okay? I’m fine.

How is it going with your (issue)? Its fine.

Now every once in a while you will come across someone nosey enough, to tell you that you cannot be fine, something is very wrong in your life and I know you are not fine. Such people mean well, they just want to help you by forcing you to talk.

In said situation you can explain that you are one of the fine people clan. It’s a clan or a tribe that lived ages ago and they were separated and scattered among the earth. These people are always fine. No matter how they look, no matter what they’re going through or what they’re dealing with.

They are fine people and you are their descendant. They also have a life motto ” fake it till you become it”. You fake being fine till you are actually fine. And believe me. It works.

Escaping reality is not a bad thing. Sometimes its necessary to maintain your sanity.

Whether your guilt and your conscience are crushing you, so you simply act like you believe in karma and that what goes around comes around.

Or in retrospect you realize that due to you immaturity you  fucked yourself out of too many good things, therefore your only explanation to it all is bad timing.

Or life if going to shit as usual and you’re just not ready to deal with it, so you convince yourself and everyone around you that its not a big deal, or better yet you can pretend you don’t even know what they’re talking about because in your head it never even happened.

And then retreat to your silent corner and get lost in reuniting with your long lost relatives ‘the fine people clan’.

But don’t get too interested in becoming an escape artist. No matter what it is you’re dealing with, you’re gonna need a reality check sooner or later. But for now, do whatever you need to do to go through it at your own pace.

Someone once said: we all set out to save the world, at the end of the day it really matters if you save only one person, and it matters most if  that person is you.

—

Passant A. AbdelAal is an Egyptian with a severe addiction for reading novels and a passion for poetry, who writes bits and pieces of poetry and musings.

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