Thursday, June 14, 2018

Running Away to Find Myself

Sometimes, life just gets to be too much, and some alone time seems like the best response. The farm had many places where I could go to be alone. Some places were actually hidden and others were just less-frequented by others. I loved going under a lifted ledge in the hayloft because it seemed close to everyone, yet no one would look there. There were a ton of spider webs, so sometimes that spot was even too scary for me. There was also an alternate side of the hayloft that wasn’t used much at that point in my childhood. It was very weak and couldn’t sustain a lot of weight, but I liked to test my luck to see if I would fall through it. Other times, I would hide between silos, in giant tractor tires or even in mounds of big, round straw bales. Sometimes I would make hidden forts in the straw stacked in the hayloft. There was also a spot I liked in the barn where we stored most of the food for the cows. It wasn’t really super hidden, but I could ball myself up so no one could see me - and when I was there, I could overhear conversations among the adults. When I was alone, I did a lot of thinking; sometimes it was more crying about things I couldn’t change. Mostly, I acted out every scenario I could think of to deal with a situation that was happening around me. Many of my thoughts centered around whether or not I would be missed if I just disappeared. I would try to stay hidden for as long as possible to see if it made any difference, even in the short-term. Life moved on. Every time. Like it truly didn’t matter if I were there. But that changed one day in the summer between third and fourth grade. I didn’t just hide in a simple place around the farm. I actually went out farther. I was so mad at Tracy for not wanting to play with me. She chose to play with Fred instead. Fred was the enemy. It hurt me so much that I just wanted to disappear and never play with either of them again. So I packed up some of my favorite toys, tied them to a stick like a "hobo lunch" and headed out. I ventured far out into one of our corn fields. Honestly, it wasn’t that far, but as a kid I thought it was really far away. It took a while for anyone to notice I was missing, but once they did, it was kind of pandemonium around the farm. EVERYONE started calling my name and searching for me. I even saw people go down the path next to the corn field, but they never looked into the corn. I was only a few rows into the field and was kind of laughing as I listened to all of this. I just sat there with my toys and played with them and drew with a stick in the dirt around me. It was a fun time for me. Then, I heard more voices! They had called my cousin’s whole family out to help search for me. I still didn’t come out of my hiding spot. I figured if they really wanted me, they would need to locate me and make me leave. I don’t remember who actually spotted me, but once I was found, I was taken to the house and Mom and “Dad” had a conversation with me about how scared they had been and how they had thought they had lost me. They asked me to never run away again. It felt nice to be loved wholly - even for those few moments. I even felt a little guilty because they said they had been about to call the cops to help try to locate me. However, even though my parents had said they would never want to lose me or have me run away or be out on my own, they ended up getting very upset with something Tracy and I did not much later - and actually TELLING us to run away. I think my feeble attempt at running away sparked some kind of response in them and put this idea in their head, leading to this strange command. On that day, Tracy and I were happy to be running away together. We decided we would go to our cousin Joey’s house and everything would be so much better once there. However, Mom and “Dad” said if we were going to run away, we couldn’t go together. So they actually told us to go to the end of our driveway and then to go in opposite directions. We both knew that either way would eventually lead us to Joey’s house, so we were still set to carry out our plan. After being out for only about 20 minutes, Mom drove a car to pick us up and bring us back home. She got Tracy in the car first and then turned around to come get me. When I saw it was her coming to get me and force me to come back home, I took off running. Of course, I had little-kid legs and couldn’t go far, but it felt good to rebel against my parents in that way. After that summer, I never attempted to run away again. I just went back to finding my hiding spots and spending time alone to think about my scenarios. In a way, I still do that today. I still find a way to hide away in order to seek solutions. Being alone in nature is one of my favorite ways of doing this. Maybe it stems from these times of hiding and just thinking about my life and seeking out answers. If I can work out a scenario in my head, then maybe it will be OK in real life, even if the scenario is rarely as I originally expected.

Finally Starting Life

I will always remember the day my life truly began ― a couple of months before I turned 15. It was Friday, March 20, 1998. I was a freshman ...