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On the Run
"All it takes is one good rain to remember you have nowhere to sleep and nowhere to go."
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By Miguel Ayala
Since I’ve been in foster care, I run away whenever I get scared.
Before, when I was living with my mother, I couldn’t escape. She was abusive in every way possible, but I was too young to run away. I had my mind set that when I left my mother’s home, no one would ever lay a hand on me again. Now that I’m in a foster care group home, people still HIT me.
When they do that, I feel fed up and angry. I just want to run, and I usually do.
The first night I ran away I went to my friend Tiffany’s house. I knew that being there was a bad decision. Tiffany’s mom is a crack addict, and while I was there I heard and saw things a mother shouldn’t say and do to a child.
My depression was creeping up and I just couldn’t deal with it. I felt like there was no place for me in the world—not at my mother’s house, not at my group home, not at Tiffany’s. So I did the only thing I knew to do. I went to the psychiatric ward of a hospital to get help. People were yelling and talking to the walls. I didn’t mind. For the first three days I was there, I didn’t shower, I didn’t eat. I just slept.
The third day, the doctors convinced me to take my medications and go back to my group home. When you’re on the run, sometimes you think you have it sweet, that life is great, but all it takes is one good rain to remember you have nowhere to sleep and nowhere to go. You think, “How will I get by? Should I rob? Steal?” I don’t want to live like that. I know I need to make some sort of peace with my past so now I don’t feel such a strong need to run whenever a problem comes up. I hope that one day I get to a place where I can stop running.
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