Running away from home: a bad idea

Although I was always obedient and well-behaved as a child and teenager, there was a time, right after my paternal grandmother died, when I felt like my parents were holding me prisoner and controlling my every move. So, like any teenager, I tried to rebel and spread my wings, knowing I had them and would surely discover the world. The best idea I could think of was to leave home.

I had a couple of friends whose parents had abandoned them, and they lived alone with their younger siblings. They could do whatever they wanted: party all night, smoke, have friends over, and even have boyfriends. These friends and I had grown up together, and you could say they were my best friends. So, when they started doing these things, I wanted to do them too, but I ran into a wall: my parents' disapproval. Seeing my friends' behavior, they forbade me from visiting them or even going near them.

At that moment, the best thing I could think of was to run away from home. I wouldn't allow—as I wrote in my diary—my parents to stop me from living my life and control everything I did. I was so belligerent that, on several occasions, I threatened to leave and wished I were older so I could go live alone with an aunt in another city, someone I got along very well with.

I don't remember what sparked that fight, that confrontation; I only know that I told them I didn't want to live in that house and locked myself in my room. My parents, used to those tantrums, simply replied that if I wanted to leave, I could, but if I crossed that threshold, I couldn't count on them for anything. I didn't cry; I just took some money I had and packed a bag with a few things. When my parents left for work, I headed out to my friends' house, my heart pounding.

When I got to the door, I knocked several times, but no one answered. I was about to give up when one of my friends came out: she had just woken up, even though it was 2 p.m. I told her my parents had kicked me out, which was a lie. My friend looked at me incredulously: she knew my parents would never do that. Nevertheless, she let me into the house, which was dirty and messy. At that moment, she told me she had to go out and find money to buy food. I immediately gave her what I had so she would let me in. My friend took the money and told me that her sister was in one of the rooms with a boy, and that we shouldn't make any noise.

As I talked with my friends and was in that house, I became more and more discouraged: they no longer studied; sometimes they ate, but they always smoked; they had to prostitute themselves to get money, and from what I understood, they kept weapons and drugs. Somehow, I apologized to my friend and left that dive, which was anything but a home, and went back to my house where no one realized I'd left with the intention of running away.
After that, I never threatened to leave home again, and my friends fell into a spiral of vices from which they only managed to break free when they became adults. I think that deep down, that friend told me all that to scare me and make me stop the crazy idea of ​​running away. And without a doubt, she achieved her goal.

The first image was made in Canva and the others are from my personal gallery. The text was translated with Deepl

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