running away from home

I have been running away from home for as long as I can remember....

I started practicing as soon as I was able to walk.

Stories are told in my family about my early morning forays.  

There was a small factory at the end of a cul de sac where we lived in my early childhood.. 

Before dawn each day, I was out of bed just raring to go!
I would rummage around in the closet for something to wear.  

Then I would slip out the front door and go visiting with the factory workers.  

Apparently I was quite a hit, because I returned home with all my little pockets bulging with candy. 

I was almost always back in bed pretending to sleep before anyone in our house woke up.
No one was any the wiser that I had left the house at all. 

But eventually a little trail of candy gave me away and my parents found out what I was up to. 

I’m sure I was spanked and told sternly never to leave the house like that and never to talk with strangers. 

But I found the world a friendly place…  I still do, really…  and I couldn't understand their concern.  

While they were in bed fast asleep, I continued to give them the slip. 

What followed was the great game of trying to keep me confined.  

As the story goes, they put locks on the doors (you have to remember…this was back in the day when such things were optional).   It didn’t take me long to figure out the locks, so they were forced to install
more and even better locks on the doors.
When even that didn’t work, they were nearly at wit’s end.
As they got more sophisticated with doors, I learned to climb out windows. 

Freedom was the thing !  I was having a grand time ! 

Dressing up was a big part of my act, too.  I remember wrapping my mother’s dresses around me,
bunching them up in my little hands and trying to make the skirts go over my shoulder,
in part so I wouldn't trip on them, but also so that people could admire my beautiful red high heels.  

There I staggered, in the chilly pre-dawn, to the bright lights at the end of the street, 

where activity, noise and friendly people beckoned.  Oh!  My poor parents!

But there you have it…  the first signs.  It was so ingrained in me right from the start.
Only a few years later, I talked a cousin into running away from home on some small grievance.
We planned our escape carefully.  We even  had the proverbial hobo stick and handkerchief.
We stole some food from the garden… actually it was a rhubarb patch and we made off unseen,
cursing the place that we left.
A few hours after the sun went down, we were cold and our tummies ached from the rhubarb.
It was a wretched journey and we turned home, humiliated, to warm beds and the comforts of our families.

I cooled my jets for awhile after that.
To quell my nerves, I spent the next years poring over maps of the world, encyclopedias
and stories of travel and adventure, thinking of all the places I must go...

Luckily, our family moved house fairly often and that kept things interesting....