(submitted by the fab Mir of WouldaShoulda.com)
I was four years old the first time I ran away. Although the story has since grown to be part of our family's repertoire of Crazy Things That Mir Did As A Kid, I remember it clearly as an experience unto itself, not just because I've heard my parents retell it so often. Sure, bits of it are hazy—I do not, for example, remember what in the world I was so angry about, only that I was furious. Something unfair had happened and there was
no rectifying it. As the smallest and youngest member of the household, I was at the mercy of my parents and my older brother, which is to say that mercy felt unreliable at best (to my young mind). Clearly I was not loved and appreciated the way I ought to be. Clearly the situation was untenable.
So I left.
I had a little suitcase—it was a bright flower pattern in shades of orange (God bless the 70s)—which I carefully packed up with stuffed animals, a nightgown, and a few good books. My family looked on with amusement. At any moment I'd realize how ridiculous I was being and that would be that, they figured. But they figured wrong; I zipped up my bag, told them I was sorry it hadn't worked out, and I left. I walked down our driveway and started down the road. Then I turned up the next driveway and marched right up to the door of our neighbors' house and rang the bell. When the kind, elderly lady neighbor answered, I informed her that I was running away from home and would need to live with her. She let me right in.
We talked and she made me a snack. I remember being very impressed with her "fancy bread;" it was a loaf, like regular bread, but the slices were tiny, like for finger sandwiches. She made me toast and cream cheese. I said I thought I was going to like living with her. She insisted my family would miss me; I said they wouldn't. But she called "just to let them know I was okay" and in a little while my dad showed up to take me home. I went, because what were the chances of the neighbor having fancy bread like that all the time? Probably not very good.
I continued to run away for the next twenty-five years or so. I didn't pack my little bag each time, of course, but when the going got tough, I was apt to take off. I held in my mind a pretty clear picture of how things should be, and when friction threatened that picture, I would get out of Dodge as quickly as possible. I grew up with a lot of conflict. I didn't like it; I'd rather be alone, without conflict, than living with strife.
My firstborn was about six months old when my husband (at the time) and I got into a fight about… something. I can't remember what. I only remember that old familiar feeling of trapped and blinding rage. "I'm going for a walk!" I yelled at him, even though I'd just gotten out of the shower and my hair was soaking wet, even though it was winter in New England and about ten degrees outside. I stormed out of the house and stomped down the street. I reached the end and turned, and kept walking. It occurred to me as I stomped along that I could just keep going, forever. I could run away. I could never go back. I could just start over, be someone else, be something else, find a life that was calm, elsewhere. This idea seemed perfectly reasonable to me for about four blocks, and then as I began to lose feeling in my toes and fingertips the horror of what I'd just been contemplating hit me. The fact that it had seemed logical to me for even a minute pretty much scared the crap out of me, and while months later (after getting some help and realizing that I'd been experiencing a pretty brutal bout of post-partum depression) I was able to forgive myself, it remains one of the few lasting moments of real shame for me when I reflect on my life as a mother. I went home; I hugged my beautiful baby; I made up with my husband; I stopped running.
I learned, subsequent to all of that, how to work through things. How to fight fair. How to figure out what matters and what's worth doing battle for and what's best given up quietly. I suspect my ex-husband would tell you I ran from our marriage, but in my mind that's one of the biggest examples of my having fought long and hard to stay, to make it work, until it no longer made any sense.
Lately I've fought to keep others from running from me, running the way I used to when things weren't perfect and it felt like everything should be all or nothing, black or white, no grays to muddy what I thought I saw. I've lost some of those battles, and it reminds me that fighting—giving a damn—hurts a lot more than the alternative. But now that I've started, I don't know how to stop. And I still think it's worth it more often than not.
Have you ever run away, literally or figuratively? Are you comfortable fighting for what you deserve or do you choose leaving over confrontation?
Read more from Mir at her fab blog, Woulda Coulda Shoulda.
We were in 4th grade when we planned to run away for the first time. We didn’t b/c my BFF said it would kill her grandmother (it probably would have). Which in retrospect was good, since we had no money, and didn’t know where to go.
I ran away the second time in 7th grade. But this really meant I just walked out of our apartment (we lived in NYC) and hung out on the street till late, and I got tired and went to home to bed.
I ran way the 3rd time in 11th grade, and spent a few days with friends, still going to school and doing everything I should except going home.
These days, my shrink tells me I run away from my emotions. Some habits die hard, I guess.
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What’s that expression? “If I didn’t have bad luck I’d have no luck at all?” Well, if I didn’t run away I wouldn’t get anywhere at all.
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I have that same instinct – to run. I remember packing my bags when I was 13 and was seriously ready to leave my home. Madonna’s CD was in and suddenly “Promise to Try” started playing and I started bawling. It made me start thinking about how my mother was feeling instead of just myself. I still have instincts to run, and have left the house in a huff after a fight with my husband, but the longer we’re together, the easier we communicate, and the less I’ve had to run.
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I never seriously ran away as a kid, I think because my mom would always so to us that we could go, but we could only bring what we came into the world with, since everything else was hers anyway. That meant we had to leave naked, and somehow that option wasn’t so appealing.
I have sometimes walked out during a fight with my husband, but I really try not to do it. When I’ve done it, it’s been because walking away and giving myself some time to calm down was infinitely preferable to staying and making things worse. I haven’t done that in a while, though — haven’t even been tempted, so I guess that’s a good thing.
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I literally ran – took off down the street at full pelt – when I was about five. I remember figuring it was pretty safe because my mum was so very, very old. Shocked me right down to my tennies when I had only gone a couple of yards and she caught me! I was deeply impressed and never ran away again.
I wonder if she regrets that a bit though as I spent the next twelve years pushing as many of her buttons as I possibly could…
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I have the opposite problem — I stick with things longer than I should, most of the time. Call me stubborn. Though moving to NYC by myself at age 19 could be construed as running away, I guess.
I think learning to fight fair is one of the most important things we can teach our children…
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I ran away when I was 6. New baby sister at home, and we had just moved. It wasn’t planned or anything. I was outside playing, and started walking down the street. At some point, I hit the house that was the boundary of where I was allowed to go. I felt a sense of adventure as I walked past it and kept going.
I walked out of our neighborhood, and started walking along a busy street. I came upon a dead armadillo by the side of the road, got scared, and turned around to walk the other way down the busy road. Eventually some adults stopped and talked to me. I tried convincing them that I was fine. That I wasn’t that far from home, all I had to do was cross a field! They could just leave me alone and keep going!
They didn’t buy it, and thus is the story of the one and only time I was ever brought home in a cop car.
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@Randi said it best:
“I still have instincts to run, and have left the house in a huff after a fight with my husband, but the longer we’re together, the easier we communicate, and the less I’ve had to run.”
She took the words right outta my mouth !~!
Running away while an adolescent must have driven my mom absolutely insane; I did it several times.
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I did run away during a Very Bad Thing. My mother lost it and was beating my brother, very hard, with a belt, for no reason. I was 8, he was 10. I grabbed my 2 year old sister and ran the four blocks to my grandmother’s house. She had to go over and stop it. My sister and I waited and a while later my Grandma showed up with my poor brother, black and blue. He couldn’t stop shaking. We didn’t have to go home for a few days. I didn’t want to, ever again, but being only 8 limited my options. I counted practically every moment of the ten years remaining that I had to live there. I know I should forgive her, but I just can’t, especially now that I have a child. I still think, “How could you?” and I vividly remember feeling so betrayed. My brother, mercifully, has blocked it, and has no memory of the event.
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I don’t know if I’d call it running away, but I will walk away. But only if I feel I have exhausted all options and fair and/or reasonable treatment will never, ever be forthcoming. I probably hang on too long, in fact, but when I reach my breaking point, I bail. Like moving out at 18 because my parents were never going to get my mentally ill brother the help he needed, and my mother was going to continue to say the problem was me, not him, and I just couldn’t cope with it anymore. I remained on good, even loving, terms with my parents. I just couldn’t live with his bizarre behaviour anymore. It was like living in the story The Emperor’s New Clothes, except the emperor was ill, not naked.
Or the ex-friend who produced a play I was stage managing and sabotaged everyone’s efforts to have the curtain go up right on time by sending a fake message supposedly from front of house to say they wanted the curtain held, when in reality she wanted it held so her idiot friends, who were too inept to get to the the theatre on time, didn’t miss the opening of the show. On opening night. With the local theatre critic in the house. After each and every member of the cast and crew was ready and standing by a full 10 minutes before curtain, which almost never happens. And then she smirked at me when I called her on it. End. Of. Friendship. Obviously, more was wrong with the relationship than just that, but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Issues? ME??? Nah…
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I am so so so scared that one day when I’m married, I’ll get in a fight with my partner and just leave. One leasson I learned in middle school was that running away and avoidance were the best ways to keep from being hurt. And now in my adult life anytime I have people get angry at me I walk away. Anytime there is a disagreement I walk away. Somebody wants to break up with me, I avoid them like its my job. I have no idea how long-term relationships work, and that makes me sad for my future long-term relationships, for my marraige.
I appreciate your story, Mir. Thanks for sharing and telling us that fighting is sometimes better than avoiding or running.
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I think learning not to run is definitely a process, and by the time you’re ready to have a long-term relationship or consider marriage, you’ll be ready to work on it. Just because you haven’t been ready yet doesn’t mean you’ll never be.
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This totally reminded me of when we were kids and my brother would run away. To the telephone pole at the end of the driveway.
I do recall the first “real” fight my husband and I had when I packed my bags and showed up on my mother’s door step. She promptly informed me that I was married now and running away wasn’t an option. Then she promptly sent me on my way back home. I’m quite sure that is an example of tough love but it made me realize that things are always going to be perfect and that we would have to work through our problems. 23 years married now, I guess it worked!
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Oops! I meant things “aren’t” always going to be perfect!
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My parents used the “feel free to run away, but you’re going the way you came to us” method as well. Somehow, no matter how furious I was, or how much I believed my family sat around conspiring against me, I just couldn’t bring myself to leave the house naked. I usually stomped outside, climbed a tree and stayed there until dark.
These days, I don’t have much of an urge to run away, but if I’m really angry, I go out for a walk or a drive until I cool down. It keeps me from saying things I’ll regret later.
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I’ve never physically run away, but I do “live” in my books as much as humanly possible, probably to the point where it’s a tad unhealthy. I guess that’s my lazy-ass version of running away, but I have no plans to stop it soon . .
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I always enjoy reading your posts. keep doing what you do!
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