Mary Angel

(2/2025) Before you ask, no, my children are not missing, nor have they run away from home. Just ask your friends and you will find a story of someone who ran away from home. Hopefully that story ended well, but that is not what I am addressing this month. I am talking about the "Real Housewives of Maryland" or something you might see on a nighttime soap opera.

When I was about six or seven years old, I ran away from home. I was mad at my mom about something ridiculous, I am sure. I told her I was going to run away from home and just like an episode of the Cosby Show, she told me she wanted me to be happy as she was helping me pack my little Holly Hobby bag. I walked two houses down to the local grocery store, which my mom had already called ahead and told Mrs. Doris I was coming. When I arrived at the store, she had a hot chocolate waiting for me and told me my mom was very sad so, I cried and asked if she could take me home. This is a cute story, but still not the point.

I am talking about running away from home as an adult. There are different versions of running away depending on your adult circumstances. Running away can be a state of mind or an actual escape. There are times when I am at my wits end as an adult, that I think, "Oh, this is why adults run away from home". This is when the stress of life is just overwhelming. It can be one big stressor, like a lost job, a totaled car, severe illness, or any number of other large, unexpected stressors. It can be all of the little stresses in life that start piling up until one more stress, like a rotten cherry on top, breaks you. This might look like this: the kids are sick, your husband hurts his back by shoveling the driveway, the washer goes up, then you are at the grocery store and when you come out someone has backed into your car and left without reporting it. That last stressor doesn’t have to be a big deal, just the last thing you can take on top of the rest.

Everyone has a different breaking point when it comes to stress. Luckily most of us just have a good cry, call our mom, or turn to our best friend for some support. That support can be either emotional, time, or sometimes someone to help care for your family. We do not run away, hopefully. This reason for running away never solves anything. Haven’t we all been told, since we were very little, you can’t run away from your problems. Take a deep breath, ask for help, and pray. This is what has worked for me. My grandma used to say, "This too shall pass" and "It will be better before your married". That last one no longer applies, but she is spot on with the first one. There is, however, another type of running away.

When stress takes its toll on you and you feel like you are getting ready to lose your mind, there is a type of running away that I have found to be beneficial for me. This running away is temporary and therapeutic. My kids have all heard me say that I should run away from home. My family has heard me say I need to run away so often through the years, that now they immediately ask, "For how long?". When we had 3 appliances bite the dust in a one-month period, followed by a new roof and a costly car repair, I was sure I was having a heart attack. It was just stress, but I was losing it trying to figure out how we were going to pay for all of the repairs that needed to be done. Just as I was trying to calm down and make a plan, we were hit with some unexplained medical issues. I told my husband I was going to run away from home because I couldn’t deal with it anymore. He asked that I hold on until we figured it all out and we would run away together. If you haven’t guessed, I deal with stress with jokes, so I don’t explode. When we took care of all the repairs and health issues, we made a plan to run away.

Our plans to run away can vary greatly. Often times it depends on whether we have had a chance to save some money in our "Escape Fund". When we run away from home it might be for a day but look different each time. We might go to a National Park and go for a walk, pack lunch, go to an antique mall and look for some baseball cards or crafting supplies, then go out to dinner. We leave first thing in the morning, tell the kids to call only in an emergency, and we are home by bedtime. Our kids are old enough to feed themselves and be home alone. These escapes are a great way to recharge and reconnect with my hubby. These are a Godsend for my sanity. When times have been lean, we have made these escapes in our own house. We will watch a movie, play some games, and then when dinner rolls around we feed the kids and then tell them they cannot come out of their rooms for a certain amount of time. It has worked great!

If it has been a long time since we have run away, we will plan something a little longer. We never fly, so it always has to be within driving distance (up to 6 hours). It is not that we are against flying, but we do not want the added expense. We might start out on a Friday night or early Saturday morning, depending on the distance from home. We headed to the beach for the weekend, gone north and toured the corning glass museum, or headed to Winchester Virginia for some shopping and a museum visit. We usually stay in a hotel with breakfast included and grab lunch on our way home. We are then home Sunday night for family dinner. Every once in a while, we will make it a long weekend and stay until late Sunday or early Monday.

Although I never want to make lite of someone who actually wants to run away from home, in my house, it is a sign for the kids that mom and dad need a little break from reality. There have actually been a few times when the kids have suggested we run away, whether because they need a break from reality or they sense we might need one. Anyway, you look at it, running away from home in our house isn’t a bad thing. Often times it is therapy and a bargain at that!

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