What to Pack When Running Away

The other day I ran into my little friend, let’s call her Lily. Lily is a real person and this conversation really happened, but I need to protect her identity so that you don’t try to go find her and bring her home. She wants to be free—of her older nine-year-old brother, it so happens.

Lily had quite the anguish covering her face when I saw her on the leaf strewn walkway in her superhero socks. The socks were no cover for the scowl though.

“What’s the matter?” I asked her. “You look upset.”

“I’m running away,” she announced with exasperation.

“You are?” I knew she must be in a quite state if this was the solution she thought best for her problems. Then I got sad. “I will miss you.” She looked at me irritated. My emotions were clearly a bother. That's when I realized it might be better to shift my focus and speak her language.

“Okay then. If you’re going to run away, I think you’ll need to do a little planning and preparation. Do you want to talk that out? There’s a lot to arrange before you run away.”

She raised her eyebrows a little as if to say ‘I guess’, so I sat myself down on a rotted stump and got situated. Lily stepped a very slight bit closer.

“First, it’ll be too difficult if you go into the world at your age with nothing. For example, what about food? What will you eat?”

She shrugged.

“Okay. Where will you get food? From the wild?”

“Yes,” Lily answered, perking up. “I can eat animals.”

“Great. Like, which ones? And how will you kill them?”

She looked around our front yards, searching for answers. She bent down and picked up a stick.

“I can take a stick and make it into a bow and arrow.”

“Oh, now that’s an idea. Yeah. I like that. Maybe you could shoot down a bird with that.”

She let out a tiny smile of hope. Things were starting to look possible for her spontaneous relocation plan. I believe planning makes all things possible, even venturing out on your own at seven years old. Unfortunately for Lily, despite my belief, planning does not make all things possible. But I also believe you’ve got to do what you can.

“Yeah!” Lily blurted out. “I could eat birds! And—"

Then she stood for a moment with her finger hooked onto her bottom lip. She’d run out of ideas. I stepped in.

“You could eat a fox. But no. Foxes are too elusive. Maybe a raccoon? They’re chunky. You’d get a lot of meals out of just one. No, wait. You could eat insects!”

She grimaced at this.

“Hmm. Well, frankly, humans eat a lot of vegetation in the wild anyway. Just eat the weeds. People will thank you for that.”

This seemed like a solid nutritional plan, and since Lily appeared to be considering it, we moved on. I wanted to address bigger issues.

“Lily, to be honest, you’re going to need money.”

She looked up from whatever she was poking at with her stick. I made an important point. She liked purchases of adorable girlie things, clothing, dolls, accoutrements. She knew I was speaking the truth.

“Do you have any? Money?”

“I have a bunch in a unicorn,” she proceeded to tell me. “It’s filled with coins. You put money into the top of the unicorn’s horn and then it comes out the butt if you need any money.”

That sounded promising.

“That’s good, but that many coins are quite heavy. You don’t want to walk around with so much weight in your backpack, do you?”

She shook her head, a little disappointed.

“You need dollars. Do you have dollars?”

She shook her head again. I could see our starting point begin to crystalize.

“Well, that means you’re going to have to rob a bank.”

She looked at me to see if I was serious, because it sounded like I meant it and that’s because I did. She would surely have to rob a bank and I didn’t think too highly of her skill with such arts. Of all the money-making options in front of her, robbing a bank was the best option. Am I wrong?

“Yes. You will have to go into a bank and walk up to the teller and ask them in a nice way, ‘Can you please give me some money?’ Don’t use dangerous force like those other robbers. You don’t need to. Banks are happy to give their money away to nice children who ask nicely.”

This, as far as I know, is not true, but I wanted to help her develop skills. I could have told her she’d win the lottery but robbing a bank with kindness would build needed abilities to negotiate the wider world.

“But don’t forget to be nice about asking for the money. That’s key. And don’t ask for millions of dollars. That, again, would be too heavy to carry. Just tell them you want like ten dollars. That’ll be good for a while.”

Ten dollars would only get her to the end of the driveway, of course, but we were taking this in stages.

Lily nodded to confirm she understood the plan. Plans were going to get her to where she wanted to be. Or maybe not. Either way, I was her run-away coach, and the goal was to launch well. This is when I got curious and excited about where she might end up.

“Have you put any thought into where you’ll go?”

She shook her head, and this made sense as we were still early into this process.

“So, okay, I can tell you about some of the places I’ve been to, then you see if any of them sound good to you. Now, where have I been?” I thought for a moment.

“I’ve been to New York City. That’s not terribly far, but it’s crowded. And it’s too steamy in the summer.”

Lily scrunched up her nose.

“Then there’s California, but again, the summer can be hot. And it’s far. You’d have to rob several banks at least to get there.” I think robbing a bank every now and again is fine, but you don’t want to make it a way of life. Very few bank robbers in the movies do well long term.

“Maryland is close and pretty. It has nice shady spots, too. Birds, raccoons, insects, even crabs. Not a bad choice.”

This is when I started to imagine Lily in her new home, and that’s when I realized so little had been figured out.

“What about clothing?!” I gasped. “You can’t go in just that.” I pointed to her outfit.

She quickly scanned her clothes. It hadn’t occurred to her until that precise moment that her prep was still severely lacking.

“You can’t walk off right now to your new and better life in just socks. You just can’t.”

How could she argue? She didn’t.

“So, let’s think. What will you need?” I held up my hand to start counting.

“One: you’re going to need shoes. Two: you’re going to need at least two pairs of underwear. Three: you will need a sweater, and a rain jacket. Four: Let’s throw an awning in there for the rain. Five: you should pack something nice to wear in case you get invited to a party—you never know.” She liked that idea. She is very into fashion.

I really felt this was starting to come together, and I felt she had the same sense. But then--

“Uh-oh,” I said. Lily’s eyes locked onto mine. “What happens when you grow out of your clothes?!”

She looked worried.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m getting close to doing that now.”

Now my opinion of her odds was slipping. Would she be able to survive out there with a handful of dollars from the banks, a few dead birds if lucky, and an awning—only to find her clothes are too small?! I heaved a sigh.

“Lily, I’m going to be honest, you’re probably going to need to borrow some of your mother’s clothing if you want this to work.”

“I can do that.”

I was sure she could, and her mom has very nice stuff.

While it was a back and forth of ideas, options, pessimism and optimism, Lily’s plan for her new life was much better than the scant strategy she had in place when I first saw her on the road ready to bolt—which is to say she had nothing then and not too much more now. Therefore, I think between the two of us we felt certain that she was finally ready to go.

It was still true that I would miss her terribly, but I kept that to myself.

“Will you promise to text or write to let me know where you end up? I’d love to keep in touch.”

She nodded. “Yup.”

I watched her start to walk back to her house. She seemed chipper.

“I’m going to go pack now. See ya.” Then she waved and walked off.

I watched her gingerly move through the debris on the path in her socks, then I turned to walk back to my house. In another day or two I saw Lily again as she was walking back from the bus stop in the afternoon with her pink backpack snug on her back with its dangling attached creatures swinging off the side.

“Hi Miss Stephanie!” she called over.

“Hi Lily! How was school?”

“Great!”

We chatted. I asked about school as I always do. Eventually the two of us went our separate ways. I was glad to see our separate ways were still in close proximity. My own boys are nearing the time when they’ll be off on their own. I know how it feels when the little ones grow up and start to leave. I’m so happy Lily has decided to stick around for that cycle. Besides, we have plenty of birds and insects to eat around here. Why leave a good thing when you have it?