Have you ever moved across country, split in the middle of the night, quit your job on a whim? It doesn't have to be a literal running away from home. I just want to know if you've ever gotten fed up and made a sudden break that you didn't even realize you wanted to make.

If so, how did it turn out? And are there any times when you wish you had run away, but you didn't?

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

Answers

Yep.

Almost three years ago I quick my job and packed up the car and followed this boy up to Alaska.

In a single instance it was the best and the worst thing I ever did.

But not for a second do I regret it.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

Although, I suppose I should mention it didn't work out in the long run.

In the long run I'm back in Texas. I'm back in Texas on my own going to school and creating a real life for myself--one I'm very proud of right now.

But I think it took running away (from convention, from my mother's illness, from all things "old") to let me come back and be happy.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

I guess you could say that my decision to move out here was running away. I left behind a critically ill parent, the aftermath of a failed relationship, and a job that was making me crazy.

And I think the year and a half I've been living in San Francisco has been the best time of my life.

Running away didn't solve my problems, obviously. My dad is still sick, and I feel a lot of guilt about not being around to spend more time with him. My love life hasn't gotten any better, either--it's been over three years since I was last in a committed relationship of any significance. But the change of scene forced me out of the depressive rut I'd been wallowing in, and I'm really pretty happy with my life now.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

Oh yeah. I ran away when I went to college - though only an hour away, not being able to afford anything farther. I was really able to haul ass when I spent a term abroad in Scotland. Then I moved out (finally) of my mom's house when I was 24. And then, last year, my move to Chicago. Leaving Indianpolis was the best thing I've ever done. Not so much because it was Indianapolis, although certainly it didn't help, but because, like Jen, I was in a rut. I was miserable and I'd perfected that cycle of misery because my life was routine and familiar. Routine is like crack and it's not something you can plan to break away from - one day, you just do, and it's usually not planned. Mostly you see an exit and you decide to take it.

Thinking about it is the quickest way to delay the break.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

I ran away from my first college 6 weeks into the semester. I realized that everything I worked for to get into that over priced hell hole meant nothing to me anymore. I was living in bad conditions, I had stopped eating, and I was on the verge of a serious nervous breakdown. So I called all the appropriate officials, pausing only to tell my psychotic roommates to stop fighting for one minute so I could hear the dean. People who cared actually urged me to go home. Suddenly I was on a plane back to my parents and leaving all my old dreams behind.

I would like to say that everything was great after that and on the surface they were. Inside I was going through a nervous breakdown at 19. Whatever was going on inside me at that school didn't disappear just by leaving. Years of dreams and energy don't just leave you, especially the disappointment, when you run away. I had to work through it.

I also think running away can actually be addictive.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

No, and I kind of regret it.

I was in a relationship in college that was really bad, and I just couldn't imagine breaking up - I was like, what will I do without him? I'd have to take the bus all the time. I don't know what I'd do with my time. I had let him come between me and almost all my friends so it really was true that I had nobody else, to talk to or hang out with or give advice or anything.

I tried to figure out what to do and kept fantasizing about just running away, him coming home one night and all my things would be gone. I didn't really know where I'd have gone to when he found me gone, just that he'd be so shocked. I guess this made sense because when he and I got together, I was living with someone else and packed a little suitcase and ran away to this guy's house. We were together for the next 5 years.

I also thought about buying a gun and shooting him and then myself but luckily I was too disorganized to figure out how to accomplish this.

Finally, he started seeing someone else and I got interested in someone I worked with and went out with him, so that we were able to disengage and move on in separate directions.

But I remember that awful feeling that I just wanted to go away, anywhere, that there was no other way to improve things.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

Yup: I up and moved 3000 miles across the country on two week's notice.

I hated my job, I wasn't terribly thrilled about life in the starchy corridors of Washington, D.C., and I felt like there was something out there I needed to do. What it was - no idea.

That was four years ago. I still miss people, and dramatically changing seasons, but after the rocky adjustment period out west, my life only kept getting be

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

Yes and I get that feeling even now sometimes. But I know that I wouldn't stay gone. Just take a break for me.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

God yes, I once ran away and if I hadn't you would be here but your Dad's name would be Henry. I jilted my bride in her wedding gown two hours before the wedding and left town with a girl I'd only met once before. Fifteen years and five kids later we were divorced, I met your Mom and the rest is history. There was a long period of my life that I regretted running away but in retrospect it was the second best move in my life. So, go with your instincts, but in all fairness, make sure everything is still plugged in when you leave.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

Never. But I'll hopefully be running away real soon.

I've lived in the Washington D.C. area since birth -- grew up here, went to college here and am going to grad school here. Things just sort of worked out that way. But grad school's done this summer (or so I hope), and when that's done with my goal is get get as far away from here as humanly possible, at least for a while. Washington can get oppressive even for the locals, and I get the sense that if I don't take a break from the area now, I'll never leave, and just become even more cynical and bitter than I already am.

Anyone out there have any good places to run away to?

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

God knows I have. I don't know if you can consider moving to Arizona "running away", because it was calculated and I was moving there to go to college. But dropping out, moving back to MA, then to Pittsburgh, then back here... all of that was running away. Problem is it never seemed to help. Wherever I lived I felt like I wasn't good enough for the people around me, so I always ended up getting depressed again.

As it stands now I think about running away ever day. Then I think about how much money I make and how I worry about ever being able to get a job again, aside from washing dishes, which is the only thing I know how to do aside from database scripting. If I had more marketable job skills, maybe I would do it. If I wasn't thousands of dollars in debt maybe I would. But I worry that it would be the same thing.. move to a new town, have a hard time meeting people, get stuck in a rut, get depressed.

Further complicating the situation is the fact that I actually *do* have friends here. As usual the friendship seems sorta rocky at times, it seems like people in their twenties and older have a hard time forming real bonds. But IU worry running away woul dbe giving up what I have accomplished here with nothing to replace it with. I wish I were more extroverted, or more charming, one of those people that can just head into a new town and have people get to know them, find a place to stay, etc. But I'm not. And not being that makes it really difficult for me to just run away.

Ugh, I'm rambling.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

Yes, I have.

Only I didn't wait until college, I didn't even wait until I was legally old enough to sign my own binding contracts. Things had been reaching a breaking point for three years. One day I came home from school and my mother called. "You didn't go to school yesterday." She was livid. "Pack yourself a bag, and have it packed by the time I come home." She wouldn't tell me where she was taking me. I just hung up. Went in my room, packed the bag, and called my best friend to come get me. I left my mother a note with her telephone number on it and stayed the weekend at my friend's house. My mother threatened to send the police to get me. I laughed and reminded her that she knew exactly where I was and it wasn't a crime for me to be here. She said she'd report me as a runaway. I told her it was an awful stretch of the word, since I was five minutes from her and she damned well knew where it was. She made a few other threats, I listened, hung up the phone, and went to bed.

I went to school the next day, ditching as many classes as possible to avoid the inevitable note telling me my mother was waiting in the counselor's office. Only she had brought reinforcements. A male friend of the family was sitting with her, someone I generally respected and trusted. My counselor was sitting with them. The three of them sat across from me, I sat alone. And that was it, I broke down. I knew I couldn't make them understand what was going on, they wanted to play by the rules- go to school, no matter how terrifically insanely bad it may be, get good grades, go to college. Do not deviate from this path. I couldn't fight anymore, so on the way home that day I laid out a plan to my mother- let me move in with a friend. The friend in qiestion lived two hours away and her mother had been one of my teachers. Let me live with my friend, finish school in the other city where I had already met most of the requirements and so could graduate on time. She debated for two days, then decided to let me go. And I didn't look back. It was hard, it was just as hard as staying would have been, only by leaving I had realised that I finally could take action and control the direction in my life. And that was exactly what I needed.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

I suppose moving out here was sort of running away. I wasn't running away from anything but the sameness of Indiana; by the time I left, I had good friends and I was happier than I'd ever been in my life, but it was something I wanted to do, and I knew I needed to get out soon. Most of my friends were pregnant or married or soon to be one or both. I took a vow of chastity until I arrived in California.

Now, I'm gonna do it again. I've gotten stuck in a somewhat cushy job - no, make that a dull, unfullfilling job in a cushy company. It's not going anywhere. Yesterday the human resources person told me straight out there was nowhere for me to go in the company - that she wanted me to go somewhere where I could use my strengths - writing or html or some other creative venture. It doesn't help that the CEO hates me; my boss called it a "final warning" but could point to no other negative trait other than "you give off a stressed aura; it always seems like you're walking on eggshells"; yeah, if your CEO hated you, wouldn't you feel like you're walking on eggshells? I don't think they can fire me for a "stressed aura" (gods, sometimes I hate Berkeley), but I'd already decided last weekend that the next step in life is to save up enough money, sublet my place (or rent a storage unit for a year) and go abroad for a year or so. Even though I "beat them to the punch" I still cried; who really likes getting told their livelihood is in jeopardy? David did damage control (and he did a good job for once) and he gave me this phrase, which I was repeating in an occasional, rainman-type fashions last night:

The business world does not nurture my spirit.

Anyhow, I'm gearing up to find a job teaching English overseas, or maybe join the peace corps or maybe just save up enough and travel until I have to get a job waiting tables in a tourist hotel for awhile. I dunno. I'm still taking a 2 week vacation to go hang with my sissy in Spain next month, but after that the next travel will be more serious, more intensive. Maybe I'll get a weekend job to help pay for it; I had two jobs the last time I was saving for something big like this (I substitute taught during the day and waited tables at night).

Hey, Beth, if you want someone to run away with, I could always use a travel companion...I'm planning on making a big old writing project of it - something about women and travel, emphasizing the lack of need for a man. I am planning on doing it alone, but it never hurts to at least start out with some company :-)

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

I ran away to Switzerland for my Junior Year Abroad. I didn't see it then, but the truth is that I needed to get away from everything in my life, clear my head so to speak.

That year away did that for me and in the middle of it I was starting to hit a real peak -- I'd broken my addiction to MUSHes simply by cutting myself off from them cold turkey, I'd refocused on my academics, gotten more of a sense of what to do with myself after graduation and figured out that I really did love the guy I was with.

So for a few months there I was flying high, looking forward to coming home, changing my major and going into my senior year with all guns blazing.

Then the guy cheated on me. And he dumped me when I got home.

So instead of flying high through my senior year, I spent it wallowing in grief, trying to figure out what the heck had happened.

Instead of graduating with a bang, I srot of crept off with a whimper.

After college, I just _had_ to get out of my parents' house. Not because they're bad parents or anything, but just because I needed breathing room.

I got a job and moved to D.C. and I've been here ever since.

Last year though, I dug myself all sorts of trouble holes and I've been feeling the urge to pick up and start over again.

And now San Francisco beckons, a mirage on the horizon, yet I am afraid to take the plunge.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

No,I haven't run away, but every few months I feel exactly the way you do now. I want to pack a few things, fill the car with gas and where ever it runs out, start a new life.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

I quit a horrible job once when I was 20. No, wait, I was fired. Well, anyway, I would've quit.

I think though, you have to consider whether a situation is untenable, or rather you've just reached a new plateau, and there is disorientation about what you want to do next.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

Yes, I've ran away three times, twice to the east coast and once to the west. All perpetuated by bad relationships. Or the need to escape them. I guess being 3000 miles away is the best way for me to make a break. They were, however, the best decisions I ever made since being basically by myself I was able to focus once again on me well as exactly how I wanted to live my life. Everything good in my life, from my children to my career, have a direct link to having made each of those moves. I'm pretty assured that life would have been much harder and less satisfying if I hadn't left each of those times. Plus, it made me stronger, emotionally ...something about driving cross country in a Prelude with a cat, a kid, and a Turtle strapped on top does that to you.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

(This is a random answer...not in response to anyone's particular running away story.)

I think we all feel this way at sometime, it seems to be human nature, but don't run away.....EVER! Face up to the person/job/situation, argue and discuss, weigh pros and cons and *decide to leave* if you must, but don't run. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Sticking with something/someone when you are dying to run doesn't mean you are pathetic, it means you are responsible and courageous, it shows that you have faith, hope and personal integrity and it builds character (that last bit courtesy my father ).

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

I just want to know if you've ever gotten fed up and made a sudden break that you didn't even realize you wanted to make.

Yes.

But it does help to know what you're running away to, much like a target helps an archer from randomly killing the guy next to him. It also helps to accept that it's ok to fail in reaching your goal. The end.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

You can run away from situations and people, but not yourself... and people often tend to recreate the same situations in different places anyway. If they collected too many obligations in one place, they might dump them all and go somewhere else and start collecting the same things (or having the same kinds of relationships) all over again.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

My senior year, I had it all figured out. Graduate from Northwestern, get my teaching certificate, find a good teaching job at a decent school in Chicago, hang out with my friends, do basically the same stuff I'd been doing for four years, except with a job.

Then Keith told me he loved me, and I knew that I loved him, so I got a U-Haul and called my Mom, and drove to Seattle with him the day after I graduated, with all my earthly possessions in a U-Haul.

Sometimes I miss Chicago, but I've never regretted my decision.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

Yes. And Beth it was the best thing I ever did. I left New Zealand, and my family to come to Australia with a woman. I told my parents I was gay and that I would be leaving the country in 3 weeks in one horrible night. We were a very close family, so it's not a "running away" from my family story. But in one instance I changed their life. But the freedom i found in just getting out of dodge, was the turning point in my life. I am no longer with that woman, and it was ten years ago. But I will never ever regret it. If you really want to do it Beth, make it happen. The hurdles just seem higher than they actually are.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

Yep, about four years ago, and I really didn't intend to come back for longer than it would take to tie up a few loose ends - headed out to stay with some friends because I'd flat out hit the end of my rope and needed to rest up so I could go home and get a divorce.

They let me fall apart, helped me glue myself back together, and the change of scene and most of all the break from my daily roles gave me room to see myself differently - no, you can't run away from yourself, but sometimes you get so buried under the daily mess that you lose yourself, and breaking that lets you figure things out.

It didn't solve anything - the problems that I left were still there, needing to be solved. But it did save me from drowning in them and gave me some room to think about them and decide what I wanted in order to solve them. It gave me room to decide that there were maybe some areas that could be solved without going the divorce route.

The four years since have been a process of solving them, little by little, and I'm much stronger than I was when I got on that plane. A large part of that is the simple fact that now I know that I'm not trapped - if I went once, I can leave again.

And one of the changes I made was realizing (and this probably sounds stupid to a lot people) that I'm not *betraying* my family if I choose to go away by myself now and then. I try to plan at least one 'runaway' experience a year, to go see friends without going as the Wife or the Mom.

It keeps me sane.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

yes i've run away, three times, at age 13, age 14 and around age 64. i've always had a fiddle foot and being raised about a mile from the north-south railroad tracks through our town, and that mournful whistle late at night when it was snow crunching cold was a tantalizing lure. the thoughts of warmer weather some where down there, and the childish dream of palm trees and the beach was torturing my soul. they didn't even have a name for it then now it is called S.A.D., i had always hated winter, i would sit in a warm room and dream of being outside in my shirt sleeves.

late in winter, with more cold and snow inevitable there would waft a chinook from over the mountains, melt a bit of snow and raise the ambient temperature to a better comfort level. . . at those times the sun would shine. twice it became an obsession and i gave in and caught a freight going south. with visions of getting a job, etc., etc., but it was out of the frying pan and into cold reality. dad came and got me the first time. the second time was a rerun of the first, but had to get home on my own. i was being troubled with pleurisy, but managed to hitch hike back home. segue to the 80's, i had always drank in moderation, but it caught me in its claws without me even being aware of it. i was working two jobs, and damn unhappy. so in the few hours i tried to water it down by having a beer and so. I had run away from reality and was just putting one foot in front of the other blindly following a rut until the bottom. it was a long road back, but i am here, with family, retired, and happy. sorry this was so long guys......... doug

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

going into my senior year in college...i was fed up with everyone and everything. i need a recovery period, i had a nervous breakdown after two years of hell. so i packed up and moved to dallas, texas from connecticut. talk about a culture shock. it did what it was suppose to: clear my head and get me away from the ickiness so i can grow stronger. i don't regret it one bit! infact i think it's time for another!

oh heather...if your interested (maybe your sister too) could be as well...there is a magazine about and for women travellers. not your typical stay here go there mag, but about the experience of adventure. check it out at passionfruit.com

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

I ran away from Pennsylvania to San Francisco after the breakup of a self destructive relationship. I walked off the plane with $300 in my pocket and an aquaintance who was willing to let me crash for a couple of months. I got a job and an apartment through a roommate finders service. The people I moved in with turned out to be hard core junkies (despite the supposed screening). I ran all the way back across the country again to escape the emptiness that I was trying to fill by leaving in the first place. What I found when I came home, the love of true friends who were waiting for the real me to join humanity again. My important lesson to date? Sounds cliche', but wherever you go, there you are. I could not escape myself no matter how far I ran. But I needed the space to rethink my life and relearn what was important to me after drowning in someone else for a year. 2 1/2 years later I am getting married and have the best job I have ever had. I do not regret running away for one moment, but I would probably never do it again.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2000

I've run away my whole life. I ran away to college. I ran away from college. I ran away from a failed relationship. I ran away from so-called friends who brought me down, physically and emotionally. I ran away from a life that was a study in boredom. I ran away from a shitty marriage. I ran away from a crappy job. Looking back I can see now that all that running away was actually me running towards something, and that's where I am now in my life. And I wouldn't change it for a second.

katie

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2000

No but I have wanted to, especially in the Spring. Last year I was so focussed on a variety of intense busy-ness (including organising a wedding (mine) and buying a new house) that Spring hardly got a look in, but the previous two years I was really wanting to run away all Spring. Now I've quit my job, I feel a whole lot better.

I think deciding things need to change can be a good a positive step, but for me I know the running way dream is to do with feeling tied down, lacking freedom, and in essence, not being Uni student with no responsibilities and commitments any more. I miss that, but I also want more out of life than freedom. However, it was definitely time for a new job!

Beth, have you ever thought of quitting your job and registering with some agencies to do temp work? That's what I'm doing, and since I only started one week ago, I can't really say whether it's going to be fun, but it sure is liberating after 5 years in one job.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2000

I ran away from Syracuse, NY in 1986, to Washington, DC. Best thing I ever did. Packed everything I had in a rental car, and drove away.

I ran away from an angry, controlling man in DC in 1998, and ran to my mom in Durham, NC. It was absolutely self preservation. Made the decision, made the arrangements, and moved in two weeks flat. I only stayed the two weeks because I felt I had to give notice at work.

Now I'm breaking up a relationship and moving again, but this time, staying for a couple of months until everything is settled. What a weird situation! We love each other, we do not get along, I have accepted this and want to go on with my life, he has not, and is sure I'll want him back within a year. He just doesn't know: I'm being considerate, and not telling him how much I look forward to getting away, and living on my own again, going where I want, doing what I want to do.

It's so close, I can taste it.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2000

I've never had the balls to up and run away for any length of time. I've quit many jobs at a moment's notice. Quitting a job always makes me feel good. I don't like to work, especially at most places.

I have up and moved to a friend's house or a summer job with housing. Those mostly make me feel good to start. They always end with me up and leaving again.

I guess I'm just a hit-and-run girl. My next plan is Hawaii...for college. It will be nice to be where it's warm and far from home. I'm sick of it here, much like you.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2000

Don't you just love people who don't have the guts to discuss an honest comment in the forum, but who have no problems what-so-ever sending flames to your private email address? I got this one today:

"Fuck you and your stupid answer to running away. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Take your worthless ideas somewhere else!"

Hey Brynn Young of byoung1@neo.rr.com...thanks for reading!

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2000

Beth - it seems obvious from your journal that what you want and what your boyfriend wants are not the same thing.

When one asks for advice they usually already know the answer, they are just wanting moral support.

My big question is why haven't you walked away before now?

Mind you, I'm only making a picture of you and your life through your writing so it obviously is not a complete one, but if Jeremy doesn't want to get married, and you do - why are you still there? Why are your needs less important than his?

You only live once, you should do want you need to do to be happy.

as always, just my opinion.

- t

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2000

yes........ but called it an adventure.

When my marriage of 20 years ended,I left my job and family and took off to England for four months. It was the most fun and the scariest thing I've ever done. I don't regret a single moment.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

Reading all these entries, I realize that I was running away when I went away to college. I had to get away from my mom. I didn't really have any plans for college, but it had been assumed that I'd go, and I planned to go to San Francisco State with my boyfriend, 400 miles from where I lived. After we broke up, I was terrified of going by myself, but there was no way to turn back, so I moved and tried to start a new life. In retrospect, I think I had a nervous breakdown that first year. In the end it was good, but I'm not sure it was the best solution.

I think there's a difference between running blindly away from something and running to something. It's better to run to something. I have never done it, myself.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

After six years studying for the priesthood, I ended my studies on three days notice, put a $400 Iceland Air ticket on my Visa (the biggest single item I'd ever bought), and fled from Rome to Portland, Maine. I picked up a job at a bank and stayed in a friend's apartment for a few weeks, until my second paycheck came in. It was a successful run because I never regretted leaving that (basically medieval) life for a return to 20th century America.

Now, I've been an attorney for nearly six years and I want to run again. I've got a total of four mouths to feed, so it's probably just a fantasy. Just in case -- Anybody know of a public advocacy job in a state with friendly personal bankruptcy rules?

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

The thought of running occurs to me about twenty times a day. I can't help it, I'm descended from hunter-gatherers. The act of running happens about once every seven years, due mostly to the fact that my library won't fit on the back of a camel. I like to stage my escapes so they look impulsive to my (ex-)coworkers and other people I want to shock, but though they're actually the product of months or even years of planning.

In 1986, having just gotten my driver's license, I climbed into a rental car with a few milk crates of books and drove from suburban Boston to Long Island, where I had just gotten a job on a week's notice (having first applied for it eight months earlier). The first thing I did when I got there was $660 worth of damage to a candy- apple red Porsche belonging to an IBM salesman. You see, the motel where I was staying had valet parking, and I had never seen valet parking before. I understood the sign that said you should have the valet park the car, but I didn't know you were supposed to let him unpark it as well. The fact the cars were parked so tight you could barely open a door should have told me something, but, you know, I didn't want to bother anyone, and I didn't want to get into another tipping situation...

The IBM salesman was extremely anxious to not report the damage to the insurance companies, and I was extremely anxious to keep my parents, who had co-signed the car rental agreement with me, from knowing what a bad driver I was, so I agreed to pay him the $660 cash which was all I had, and things were almost check-bouncingly tight for a long while afterwards.

Some years ago it occurred to me that a) my parents already knew I was a bad driver in 1986; b) most new drivers make mistakes; c) insurance is supposed to cover mistakes - that's what it's for; d) the IBM salesman had given me his card and he lived only a few towns away, so what was he doing with his car parked at a hot-sheet motel overnight? No wonder he didn't want to report all the details. In fact, I probably could've blackmailed him, if not for money, then for details of some new product. (I was working at a computer magazine.) Stupid. No wonder I never made it in New York.

Running beats killing yourself, I always look at it that way. When you leave, you find out who really misses you, *and* you get to keep playing *and* you can always go back, though I haven't turned back yet, and in fact I rather intend to keep moving north for the rest of my days.

-- Anonymous, February 29, 2000