I never tried to run away from home, even as a child. I’m not even sure when I was exposed to that concept. In my memories, “running away” is on a shelf with “groundings” and “allowances,” otherwise known as things other people had to tell me about. All foreign words in the Valverde house.
I can’t imagine Little Lorraine finding any solace in the idea of being away from her family. In fact, one of the most vivid memories of my childhood is one of Baywatch and finding myself alone. It was a Sunday before church. I was ready, dressed in my frilly dress, matching sock and dress up shoes, and was waiting for my family parked in front of a Baywatch re-run. I was pretty into what I was watching, too, because I didn’t hear my mother calling me, telling me it was time to go. I didn’t hear her and my sisters file out of the house to teach me a lesson. I didn’t realize I was alone until the episode had ended.
As the cheesy 90′s title music played, I realized it was the only sound in the house. I called out to my mother, my sisters, and received no response. I’d heard enough about Jesus coming suddenly to pick up his people to be more than just regular frightened. Maybe watching Baywatch was a sin– the kind that got your ticket to heaven revoked. I started to cry. I don’t know how long this all went on for. The memory is vivid, but I was also very young, and time plays differently at that age. However long later, the front door opened and it was my mother, saying she was just outside the whole time and this is what happens when I don’t pay attention.
I guess I was an absentminded child, prone to daydreams and zoning out. I would lose myself in crowds and get left alone in houses. It was meant to be a lesson, but my mother felt horrible afterwards, as she didn’t expect me to take it so badly. I’ve never minded being by myself, but I’m rather terrified of being alone.
I did my best to start this year steadily. I had big goals, but ones I broke down responsibly, things I wanted to accomplish by the end of 2014. Smaller, monthly goals that would get me to my big, year-long resolutions. Pace yourself, I told myself, and I did my best to keep my own optimism in check. I probably shouldn’t have worried so much, though, because the first 7 days of 2014 have done plenty to slow me down.
In these 7 days I’ve felt under-appreciated, overlooked, sick to my stomach (literally. Stomach flu), weak, sore, exhausted, overwhelmed and about a million steps behind everything. Mostly, it was the stomach flu and some stuff about work I won’t be sharing on the Internet.
In this craziness, I found myself thinking about what ties me to this place– to my hometown, to this city, to this state. I started this year with insane plans for travel (Savannah, Palm Springs, Puerto Plata, Eastern Europe) and more and more my mind is drawn that way– is drawn away. And, more than what ties me to this place, what’s keeping me here? Family? 3100 hours of sunshine? A fear of being alone?
And if I’m thinking about these things now, in the 7 days of a crappy start to a new year, is it running away?
And who has some Barbie luggage they can lend me?
(Because chances are I’d pack a sandwich, head off for a while, and realize things aren’t so bad back home, where my bed is. All it was was a crappy start to a new year. And a damn flu.)
(Something like that.)