If Running Away Were Easy, We’d All Be Gone by Now 🏃🏽‍♀️

There’s a certain kind of fantasy we all have at some point—the “run away from everything” kind. You know the one. It usually shows up on a Tuesday when your email won’t stop pinging, your laundry is judging you from across the room, and you briefly consider becoming someone who lives in a tiny coastal town where no one knows your name and your biggest responsibility is deciding between coffee or tea. It feels freeing just thinking about it. Romantic, even. Like maybe if we could just step out of our lives for a bit, everything would reset and fall into place.

But here’s the thing—running away, in real life, doesn’t always come from a place of choice.

Sometimes, for people living with dementia, there’s this very real pull to “go home”… even when they are home. It’s not a dramatic escape or a whimsical fresh start. It’s a deep, internal sense that where they are doesn’t quite match what they feel. Their reality is shifting, and in that space, the need to go—somewhere that feels right, familiar, safe—becomes very real. They’re not running away so much as they’re trying to run toward something that makes sense to them.

And if you sit with that for a moment, it’s kind of humbling.

Because while we joke about packing a bag and disappearing into a new life (preferably one with better weather and fewer responsibilities 😌), they’re navigating a world that’s already moving out from under them. We fantasize about escape, but they’re trying to anchor themselves.

It makes you look at your own “I want to run away” moments a little differently. Maybe what we’re really craving isn’t escape, but relief. Or quiet. Or a version of life that feels a little lighter, a little more like us. And the good news is—we don’t actually have to disappear to find that. Sometimes it’s as simple as stepping outside, changing up a routine, or giving ourselves permission to not carry everything all at once.

So no, you probably don’t need to run away and start a new identity in a beach town (although… keep that one in your back pocket just in case 😉). But you can create little pockets of “getting away” right where you are.

And maybe that’s the kind of running that actually brings us home.