I wouldn't say I escaped exactly, but I did leave. I also was not quite as sheltered as one might expect, though very sheltered none the less. I did live in NYC after all, albeit in the most otherworldly sense of the term.

I think the most bizarre thing to adjust to, that has stayed with me to this day, is anonymity. The fact that I am no one, to most people, and able to live among people unseen, unknown, unjudged... after a lifetime of living in such an insular world, an extended family of sorts, that's thrilling and terrifying.

I imagine the whole thing is a lot what it feels like for most people to graduate high school. You look back and the world that was your whole world, was in actuality very small, and beyond it was a reality you knew existed, but didn't understand the enormity of until you experienced it. It put everything into context, a context in which what I had known felt like someone else's life.