How many times have you tried to run away from home? For me it was only once, and a pretty lame try. When I was six or seven, I remember getting furious at my parents during dinner, probably because I didn’t want to eat my vegetables or something, and angrily announced that I was going to run away. I ran up to my room, hastily packed a knapsack full of all the essentials, including a flashlight, a sleeve of graham crackers, and my stuffed animal rabbit, and left. Sort of. I dramatically exited the house through the garage, opened and closed the power door, still inside and then hid in the corner of the garage. Behind the shovels and painting supplies, I waited. I guess what my seven-year-old brain was plotting was to simply make my parents think I had run away. Once their guilt had accumulated unbearably, they would start the search party, and I would reveal my hiding place and accept their profuse apologies. I think I lasted for about an hour before my rations ran out. As I slipped into the house in shame, my first and only grand run-away plan was over.

I think most of us have one of those stories, trying to run away. While I only made it as far as my garage, Greg Szumel ’14 made it all the way to his backyard. At four, Ellie McGinnis ’14 made it over a mile with a packed suitcase before turning back.

I still occasionally want to run away, though not for the same reasons I had as a kid. Now-a-days, it is not because of that seven-year-old rebellion against my parents’ vegetable-imposing ways, but for some underlying childhood wishes – for adventure, a change of scenery, or a new start.

At Baynard track, where indoor track practices, there’s a freight train that passes by every other day or so around 4:30pm. I sometimes fantasize about running alongside the train as it passes, jumping into one of the empty cargo containers and seeing where it may take me. It appears to head east from Baynard, probably traveling towards the Delaware River and then north towards Philadelphia. Maybe it would take me all the way to Maine.

Other days, I wonder what would happen if I took Exit 165A to I-95 South instead of 165B I-95 North towards school. Where would it take me? With a full tank of gas, and my family’s Ford Fusion hybrid, I could maybe make it as far as Asheville, NC. Once out of gas, maybe I could live the life of Ana and Ruby in Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, tending a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Or I could hitchhike continuing south, until I find a traveling circus. I could finally put the bag of modeling balloons in my closet, my mediocre juggling skills, and the unicycle I got for my tenth birthday to good use.

I suppose this wanderlust is sometimes driven from a desire to break boredom and routine. Days seem to become a bit monotonous at times – wake up at 5:50, leave the house at 6:20, get to school, go to class, go to break at 10:15, go to class, eat lunch at 12:45, go to class, go to practice, go home, eat dinner at 7:00, do homework until 12:00, go to bed, repeat. Maybe all I want is a break in this routine, a change of scenery, a change of pace. Or maybe I daydream about running away, starting a new life, out of fear of the present. When things get hard, my immediate instinct is to think of ways out, flight over fight.

Yet, as Lola expresses in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, “The only way out is in.”

With limited money, gas, or guts, I would never actually carry out any of these irrational fantasies, just as I never actually ran away as a kid. Once the initial thrill of adventure is exhausted, life as a hobo riding the trains or as the lone wolf hiking the Blue Ridge Mountains would get difficult really fast. I would miss my family and friends, indoor plumbing, and Wawa too much. But it is nice to fantasize sometimes about those “What if?s”, about running away in search of adventure to start over, just to wonder if I could.

Yet, there are breaks in the routine, adventures waiting on the horizon that make me excited for the future. There are new flavors of Ben & Jerry’s to taste, different trails to run on, new books to read, more shows and movies on Netflix than I could ever physically watch (though I can try, can’t I?). In my near future, I will be starting college (knock-on-wood), an expedition in itself. I cannot wait for that adventure, in a new city or town, with new people to meet, new experiences to be had. Yet, it will be nice to know that wherever I go on my quest, in pursuing my wanderlust, there is a place back home I can return to.

As Up taught us, adventure is out there. It’s time to go and find it.