Have you ever felt like running away from home? I have. Just this past weekend, by chance.

I guess I attribute it to one too many dried-on coffee cup rings staring up from the counter, one too many empty toilet paper rolls not replaced by the person who finished it, one too many loads of laundry, one too many … you get the drift.

As I sat in the parking lot on one too many trips to the supermarket, realizing this mood was a momentary malaise that many experience (especially during Rochester winters) but nonetheless, contemplating where I might go if I had an escape adventure, I thought about the time I ran away as a child.

On that particular day, when I was about seven, I’d gotten yelled at one too many times. I packed up  a P, B & J sandwich, put a few dog biscuits in a bag, grabbed a jacket in case it got cold overnight, my little red cart, our hound dog Spunky, and headed out into the fields. I didn’t go far…just to the top of the hill where there was a plank-covered well, with a leafless, scrawny tree on which a red wing black bird sat, screaming conk-la-reeeee. I sat there in the spongy mid-day heat, under the yawning gray sky, my arm wrapped around Spunky for comfort, to contemplate my actions while staring at our house in the distance. I realized my family might not miss me until dinner, which was hours away. I could be in the next county by then. That wasn’t really what I wanted. What I wanted was to know I was important enough to be missed. Really, I just wanted to be appreciated.

In the end, after a while which was probably an hour but felt like several, Spunky and I returned home. I don’t think anyone ever even knew I’d run away.

The difference between then and now is that, as adults, we have tools — yes, to run away — but also to make the changes to stay. We can speak up when we feel overwhelmed and underappreciated. We have the power to infuse fun in our lives when we feel yawning grayness creep in.

We just have to remember to call on those powers and use them… and to remember that our current situation is only temporary.

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Published in the February 27 issue of Beyond the Nest’s free weekly newsletter.