Wouldn’t We All Just Runaway?

There’s always been something quasi-romantic about the runaway narrative. Whether you’re 10 years old and that means you create your own world in your backyard, or whether you’re sixteen and it’s the sixties and you’re trading comfort for freedom. The rebellious side, the one that comes out when you make your parents tell you twice to fold the laundry, fuels that itch for freedom. What would things be like if you could leave this stupid world behind? What would it be like to live your life the way you wanted to, no rules, just freedom?

It’s romantic, especially for those of us who were forced to grow up faster than others. But it isn’t possible. Not really.

To truly runaway, you have to give up bathrooms, clean water, mosquito spray. Maybe if you’re seven you can camp out underneath your trampoline for a night and call it good, but that’s not what real running away is. Really running away is eschewing society, with all of its BS and politics.

That’s not what we want it to be though. We want running away to be like the runaway narrative. We want to travel Into the Woods, take a journey, go to New York City. We want to see it in slow motion, our hair flying erratically behind us as we stand up in the bright red two-door convertible. Who’s driving? Who knows. We want to chase freedom, chase boys, chase fireflies, grinning ear to ear as he leans in closer, closer, closer.

But the runaway narrative that shows up in books and movies isn’t real. Real people don’t run away from their lives. They run away from their jobs, their house, their friends, their problems. They move to a different neighborhood or go to college out of state. They stay silent about what’s happening in their lives so that the smile never slips, because if it slips they know.

There’s something romantic about the runaway narrative in art. There’s nothing romantic about the runaway narrative in real life.