The one that ran away… (part I)

As seems to be the pattern these days a conversation with a friend got me thinking about this. She’d mentioned that she’d recently reconnected with an old boyfriend, and had always thought of him as “the one that got away”. And I wondered to myself, “Did I have someone in my past that ‘got away’?” I couldn’t think of any old boyfriends from my past with whom I wished I could have had a do-over. Quite the opposite - in fact more often than not I remember being “the one who ran away”.

You run away / You could turn and stay / But you run away / From me
You Run Away -The Barenaked Ladies

I started running away in Grade One… There was a boy, Nick, in my class upon whom everyone had the requisite ‘crush’. Every day at recess the teacher had us line up at the classroom door, boys on one side girls on the other, before we could file outside for our 15 minutes of energy release. If you, as a girl, were fortunate enough to find yourself first in line, and Nick was first for the boys, you were considered an item, at least for the duration of recess. Nick had the cutest smile and eyes that seemed to sparkle with mischief. All the girls wanted to be first in line when Nick was there. And then one day I got my chance. He made some cute comments about “going out” with me at recess and I blushed. The bell ran and out we went with my two friends, Eve and Donna. We started chasing Nick around the school yard – back then it showed you liked someone. We ended up at the front of the school behind some lilac bushes. Nick looked conspiratorially at all three of us and told us that he’d show us ‘his’ if we showed him ‘ours’. Eve and Donna immediately said OK and looked at me. I took off running before I could answer. Three minutes later the three of them emerged from behind the bushes smiling and laughing and when they saw me they turned and walked the other way. I was wounded. I made sure I was never first in line in Grade One again.

And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldn’t get away.
I Ran – A Flock of Seagulls

I ran throughout junior high school. At the time I assumed it was just because I was so shy. Forward boys made me nervous, cute-looking forward boys petrified me. I remember thinking that the only reason a cute-looking boy was showing interest in me was because he wanted something – something that I wasn’t willing to give. “But all the other girls are doing it” they would say, and I would think that there was something wrong with me that I just wasn’t ready to do that with anyone, whatever “that” was.
Once, the junior high schools had a joint dance with all the schools invited. I met Kevin at one of these dances. We locked gazes across the darkened gymnasium and he courageously walked over to me, through the throngs of girls on my side of the gym and asked me to dance the last slow dance. I’d thought he was cute and said yes. As we swayed back and forth to an ABBA song I vividly recall smelling his cologne. He’d borrowed his dad’s Old Spice. My friends told me later that he was playing with my long hair as we danced, twirling it around his finger. After the dance we exchanged phone numbers and met every now and then after school to skate-board down St. Charles Ave. It was a very long street that didn’t usually have a lot of traffic on it. Kevin and I never held hands and we definitely never kissed. Being naïve as I was I didn’t know that it would bother him, so when he made the obvious overtures I did the obvious thing; I turned the opposite way on my skateboard and ran away. I guess it shouldn’t have come as any surprise when he sent a friend to tell me that he didn’t want to “go out” with me anymore.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
Time - Pink Floyd

I was just out of University. I’d taken a job in the Forestry Office in town after graduation while I looked for a permanent job. I met George there one weekend when some friends and I attended a curling bonspiel that he was competing in. He asked me out shortly after that and we went on a few dates. He seemed nice and we grew close enough that he felt he was ready to confess a few things to me. He’d been in an accident years earlier and had injured his spine. Since that time he’d had “performance issues” and things weren’t that reliable anymore. He thought I should know. I said the only thing I could think of to say, “It didn’t matter.” But I lied. It did. Not long after that we were at a social. I’d had a couple too many drinks, something snapped and I ran. I left the social, in the middle of a very chilly March evening, without my coat or purse, and found myself running. I had nowhere to go. His house was locked, but the car out front wasn’t. So I hunkered down in the back seat not quite sure what I was going to do. He was understandably freaking out by my disappearance from the social (I heard this later of course) but eventually had to leave and come home where I sheepishly emerged from the car. He never asked why I had run away. I think he was afraid to because he didn’t want to know the answer. He forgave me instantly, and held me through the rest of the night, but it was the last night we spent together. I felt like a shallow fake and not worthy of him.

And so I lay here awake
As all the clouds fall away
Then fast asleep in your arms
Wake up wonder where we are
Try to freeze frame the day
Then the light starts to fade
I will scream at the sky
'til we drink the oceans dry
And so we run
And So We Run – David Usher

…to be continued