Wind Back Wednesdays: How To Guide on running away effectively

Wind Back Wednesdays, where I choose a memory from my childhood and talk about it. 

Being a child who had been known to lean towards the more dramatic ideations in life, I have several memories that consist of my disapproval in my parents, leading in my attempts to run away from home. 

As you can see, by the fact that I am not homeless, I did not succeed on these attempts. Most of the time it was because I would get to half way down the street and then decide that it was too cold or I was too hungry, and I would scutter home before The-Parents had even noticed I had gone. My reasons for running away can be pretty much summed up in the below video from BBC's TV show 'Outnumbered.'

I'm not kidding, when I watched this for the first time, I called Marmie straight away and was all "It's like they were spying on me as a child and filmed one of our conversations word for word!" And Marmie was all "I know! This is exactly how I remember it!" 

I never really had a very good reason for running away. It usually was because The-Parents had asked me to clean my room or had told me I couldn't go out and play, or something similar. Most of the time, it would begin with an announcement to The-Parents, as in the video, but occasionally my over-dramatic side would win out and I would attempt the running away with as much flourish and anguish as I could muster. 

I would scream and cry and tell The-Parents that I hated them, and then go ahead and write the most distressing "I'm running away" note of all time, all the while shouting from my room how I hated everyone and life was so unfair. An example of the notes I would leave would be something like: 

Dear Mummy and Daddy, 

I am leaving home and never coming back. You clearly don't love me as you just shouted at me really loudly and I hadn't even done anything wrong. You won't ever learn how to treat me nicely, so I'm going to leave home and live on the streets in the rain, where I will probably catch something and die, and it will be all your fault! I hope you're happy with yourself. Maybe when I'm dead, you will realise that you should have treated me better.

From Lisa

Whilst writing this, I would usually be crying at the top of my lungs, making the most noise I possibly could, and shouting sentences like "You don't even care about me" and "You are so horrible!" And then, when one of The-Parents attempt to come into my room to try and sort it out, I would scream at them to get out of my room and leave me alone. Mainly because I didn't want them to see the letter before I left the house. 

There was one time when Father managed to sneak into my room whilst I was in the throes of a temper tantrum and scrawling my letter in amongst the tear stains on the page. I hadn't heard him on account of all the crying and tears, and so he had managed to get as far as coming up behind me and glancing over my shoulder whilst I was writing. Once I had noticed however, I shut the exercise book I was using closed, and screamed at him to leave. To which he complied. 

Once I was happy that he wasn't anywhere near my room anymore, I then finished the letter, hid it under my pillow so as to give me plenty enough time to get away before The-Parents found it, and prepared my Running Away kit, which always consisted of my stuffed blue elephant "Nelly" and a coat. 

At the time, we lived in a flat on the ground floor. As such, I had a bedroom window  that led right outside the front of the house. Most of the time, I would use this window to run away. However, on this occasion, I had no shoes on and so knew I would need to run away via the front door, where all my shoes were stored.

Now, sense would say that if you want to sneak out the house, it would probably be a good idea to stop crying, wait a bit for The-Parents to be distracted by something else, and then sneak out that way. However, I was 7, so that thought hadn't occurred to me. Instead, I thought the best option would be to run as fast as I could to the door, put my shoes on and then leave. 

This is what I did. I slammed open my door and ran to the front door. However, as I sat down in the lobby area to put on my shoes, Father approached me and watched me for a while, before eventually asking: 

"And where exactly are you going to go?"

"I'm leaving!" I shouted back. "You've really upset me this time."

"Okay." Father said. "But where are you going to?"

"To the streets, where I'll die!"

"You're not going anywhere."

It was at this point that I realised Father had somehow  worked out I was going to run away before he had come to speak to me. I couldn't understand this as I knew that he wouldn't have had the time to find the letter yet and, as far as I was concerned, I had done nothing to give myself away. I was flabbergasted. He had worked it out somehow and I realised that he was clearly a force to be reckoned with. It was then that I realised Father wasn't going to let me leave, so I untied my laces and dragged myself back into the house. 

I had been genuinely perplexed for weeks after as to how he had guessed it...

Looking back at all the memories I have shared so far, I've realised I spent most of my childhood completely confused and amazed by what happened around me... I was also really stupid.

How was this a How To Guide? Basically, if running away, just do the opposite of everything I have done... Unless you are doing this for attention purposes (which, let's face it, is pretty much why I was doing it), then do it exactly the same. 

Peace out my lovelies.