By Kate Stockrahm
When I was around five-years-old, I ran away from home.
Well, more accurately, I ran away as far as I dared to go without permission, which meant I went to the fenced-in backyard of my family’s suburban Detroit home.
I can’t remember what happened over dinner to make kindergarten Kate absolutely sure she could never speak with her mom again, though I’m certain younger me was right to think so. (I was – and remain – pretty stubborn.)
But what I do remember about that experience is that I was resolute in my mission to start life anew elsewhere, sure that I would be better off without my parents and my little brother weighing me and my big dreams down.
So, after being sent to my room, I packed up my most precious belongings: a Polly Pocket compact, a few of my “dress up” clothes for the job interviews I’d surely go on, and some crayons and paper to document my rise-from-tragedy for future
biographers. Then, I snuck out of the back door.
Already feeling freer from the injustice I’d suffered mere tens of feet away in the dining room, I set up my pink and yellow pop-up tent and pulled one of the patio end tables over so I could start my manifesto.
However, not having the faculties to write more than a few simple sentences before getting bored (and running out of vocabulary), I instead staged future scenarios with my deeply apologetic mother played by Polly Pocket:
“Kate, where have you been all of these years? We’ve missed you so much!”
“I’m so sorry for doubting you at dinner that night. I can’t believe you’re 10 now! Double digits and I missed it! I was such a horrible mother to you, you angel.”
“Is that a Nobel Prize?! And you’re the youngest physicist to ever receive one? I’m so proud. Although I know that I have no right to be since you ran away and made a life for yourself without me.”
And so it went for the next several hours: my mind growing more and more confident that mom would regret her decision to scold me, and she’d definitely beg me to forgive her should we ever meet again.
But then, it started to rain.
In my haste to escape tyranny I’d not thought about a coat, boots, or a blanket. I was shivering as the droplets started soaking the ground, and my play-tent turned soggy in conditions it was never meant to weather.
I wanted to cry… but I also wanted to win.
Soon though, my mom popped her head through the tent flap and asked me if I would come inside.
“Victory,” I thought.
But really, it’s clear I was bad at running away.
To learn just how bad, I called my mom to ask if I’d misremembered this ill-fated attempt to flee. She told me no, if anything I’d been “even more stubborn” than I described.
In proof, she said that while I thought I’d “snuck” out, instead I had directly informed her I would “be running away” before I went into the yard — an admittedly amateur move.
Further, I’d had to “make a couple trips” back and forth to the house to carry out that pop-up tent and other supplies, resulting in quite a scene.
“Think about it: you were small,” my mom explained. “It was hard not to laugh.”
In my defense, she confirmed that I really had stayed out back at least a few hours, which she’d found admirable at just five
years old. She also said that while I clearly wanted to come inside when the rain started, she knew I wouldn’t say so, and she was happy to ask me in so I could save face.
Anyway, April is my mom’s birthday month. So in an ode to her goodness, I’d like to thank her publicly for inviting me back inside that evening, and let her know that, decades later, I’ve come to terms with being bad at running away.
(I’ll just settle for being great at everything else, like whatever she and I were arguing about in 1996.)
This article also appears in East Village Magazine’s April 2025 issue.
