Reasons to run away from home

Before I hop on the plane to the USA, I had chances to visit shelters for homeless children. Sometimes I went there with my friends to do activities with the children or sometimes I went there alone just to visit them and to see if there's anything I could help.

Children there were homeless for many reasons. One reason that was interesting for me is they run away from home.

When home is not where the heart is, for some reason, you don't feel warm or safe, you don't feel like it is where you want to spend even a night there.

That was why they ran away from the place where should have been their home.











OK....

Move a little bit closer, concentrate......,

and I'll tell you my secret that I never shared with anyone....








I once was about to run away from home as well.




As much as I can recall, I was 8 or 9 years old.

There were 2 cousins and I always played together almost every day. We were about the same age. I lived in the same house with one of them who was a girl. Another one was 1-year-older boy who always came to our house to have dinner with us every evening.

We were so close

so close that I did anything just to keep them with me since I loved to have them around me in every single day.




One day in summer school break, the boy told me that he would run away from his home because his parents quarreled.



"How can you be alone?" I asked.

"I don't know," replied him.

"I don't want you to go alone. I'll be your company. I'll come with you."




How about that, huh?

Such an innocent, in other word, stupid girl I was....




My cousin and I then set the date and time that we would run away.

In one morning, his parents dropped him at my place as they usually did during school holiday for us to play together. He came with his backpack and asked if I was ready.

"Is it enough?" I asked him while showing 2 t-shirts, 2 underpants, 1 shorts and 3 packs of instant noodle in my backpack.

"No, we need this too," he said and ran to grab a can of sardine from our food cupboard.

"Alright, now we're ready." He said.




"Where are we going?" He asked me while we're walking down from the second floor.

"I don't know. But I think I want to find my dad." Since dad did not back home that time, I had an idea to search for where he was.





"Why you guys have to go?" My another cousin asked. She knew what we were doing from the start.

"I don't like that my parents quarrel." He said.

"I will find my dad." I told her.




"Do you really go?" She looked at us sadly.

"If you guys go, then who's gonna play with me?" She asked the question that made me hesitate.




I looked at both of them hesitatingly.

I wanted to be his company and wanted to find my dad. At the same time, I also did not want my another cousin to play alone.




"What should we do?" I asked him.

"I don't know." He replied me.




Suddenly, there's a sound from outside.

"Ice-cream truck!" I screamed.

My cousin and I threw our backpacks on the floor. Then three of us ran outside to catch the ice-cream truck.




"Maybe we can run away from home again later." My cousin said while his mouth was filled with ice-cream.







That is the silliest thing I have ever done in my childhood.

I think my cousins even forgot about it already.








This morning, I have got another reason to run away from home from one of my nephew.

He told me he would run away if I would not go back to Thailand.




"Why would you run away from home if I would not back home?" I asked him.

"Because when aunt Khwan is not here, I have no one to play sword, little soldiers, racing car, and robot with."




Well....

It is such a good reason to run away from home, isn't it?





"OK.... so if I wouldn't back home, where would you run away to?"




With an innocent heart, his reply made me a big smile and laugh out loud.




"Umm.........,

I will run to Seven-Eleven!"