Back to Builder's Square Roots

Identifying my motivation is not always an easy task. In fact, motivation for any particular action is probably easiest when you are young.

In one of the more endearing stories concerning my childhood, I make a lot of dramatic noise, which proves to signify nothing, and act like quite the petulant toddler. Around the time my little brother was born, I got yelled at by my dad and sent to my room because I was bugging him while he was trying to do some work in the garage. I was really upset over this because I don't think I had ever been yelled at previous to this. At any rate, my response was to run up to my parents' room and steal my mom's big, red suitcase -- which I promptly filled with all the clothes in my dresser and closet. I then dragged the big, red suitcase down the stairs and left it on the landing by the front door. Realizing that the whole family was in the basement with my baby brother, I went down to announce my imminent and permanent departure from the household. Earlier in the day, I went grocery shopping with my mom and bought some fudgsicles. I didn't think it was very fair that I wouldn't be having any, especially since I was the one that requested them, so I also declared that I would be taking the fudgsicles with me. I waved goodbye to my baby brother, hugged my mom and dad, and then left forever.

When I was little, my best friend Jimmy lived next door. Without asking, I went over to his house and asked if it would be OK to live there from now on. He thought that was a fantastic idea, so I dragged my suitcase into the house, put my fudgsicles into their freezer, and then we plopped down in front of the TV to watch Dukes of Hazzard. Afterwards, we played a make-believe game of baseball where he was the Yankees and I was the Indians.

The next morning, Jimmy and I were eating fudgsicles out on the front step when I noticed that my mom was pulling into the driveway after working for the night at the hospital. Suddenly, I got really sad. So I ran home and gave my mom a big hug and told her how much I missed her. I went back to Jimmy's to grab my suitcase. I told him that he could have the remaining fudgsicles (I suppose it was only the just thing to do).

I must remark, with or without irony, that I suspect that I also felt a bit of shame for spending the night in the home of an avowed Yankees fan. Jimmy ended up not being the greatest friend. He would get me in quite a bit of trouble from time to time. One time he suggested that I eat two Flinstones vitamins. Everyone knows that more than one a day is harmful for little kids because of the danger of overdosing on iron, but who was I to resist its oh so addictive flavor.

I was always surprised by how little my parents seemed to care about and how little they mentioned the whole running away episode. I'm a bit disappointed that the story only seems noteworthy (or even footnoteworthy, for that matter) to me. Not until much later would I realize that my parents saw right through my dramatic call for attention. Clearly I was feeling neglected with the new baby around and all. More importantly though, I only went next door. I'm sure they also thought that I would cave pretty quickly. At any rate, I guess they knew what they were doing (I hope).

My runaway attempts always seem to play out more dramatically in my head than they end up actually occurring. Whatever the motivation for running away though, I always come running back. More alarming though is the fact that regardless of how bad I know running away will play out, I seem to fall into it so easily -- must be like riding a bicycle (a big and stupid bicycle, the kind with a rusty chain and two flat tires).

One can only hope that one day I will manage to prevent my attempts to sabotage the whole growing-up process. Maturation is hard enough to come by when you don't have some odd feeling of nostalgia for your own childish behavior. So cheers to my clingy, attention-starved, and emotionally unexpressive self! You have indeed served me well all of these years.