The Art of Running Away
By Harriet Richardson
When I was 11 years old, Coronation Street’s Sally Webster had an affair. The storyline culminated with the other woman, who was not only married to a love rat but also diabetic, ending her own life by downing a bag of sugar. This soap opera storyline was the first time I’d ever come across the concept of ‘suicide’, and on learning what it meant, I quickly made up my mind that it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. I distinctly remember thinking ‘that’s so silly’ and I declared to my mum that “if I hated my life, and couldn’t think of any way to make it better, I’d pack a suitcase, go to Disneyland Paris and live off ham and cheese croissants”. I can see even now how, at eleven, listening to the same Fantasia track on loop while surrounded by aspiring actors dressed as the cast of Toy Story 2 seemed like an appropriate cure for most types of depression. I adopted this attitude for many years, changing the ‘Disneyland Paris’ bit to the marginally more selfless but just as unrealistic ‘go and build a school in Uganda’ or ‘hike to the top of Mount Everest for charity’. It wasn’t until New Year’s Eve 2023, at 28-years-old, surrounded by my friends in my Brixton home as we welcomed the new year in, that I started to question my attitude towards ending one’s own life.
Before I go any further, I feel it important to state that I have no desire to, and no plans to, end my life. I don’t have suicidal ideation, and if you, do or you know someone who does, please read this, call this number, and ask someone for help.
Nothing fantastical happened on New Year’s Eve. There was no midnight kissing, or bust-ups, or Coronation Street-style annual crescendos. The thought crossed my mind just before midnight. While my friends chatted over fondue about their hopes and dreams for the coming year, I realised I didn’t have any. It was the first time in my life that my page was blank. Not blank like an exciting new canvas awaiting paint, but more like the blankness of Instagram when you’re on the tube— a frustrating nothingness of placeholder grey tones awaiting signal.
I realised I’d felt like that for a while. For 6 months, maybe. Or even a year? I suddenly couldn’t understand what was driving me to carry on. What happens if you don’t carry on? As my engaged-to-be-wed-friends talked over the table to my just-put-a-deposit-down friends, I could feel the fantasy of my own adult life slipping from grip. In so many ways, I wasn’t the person I thought I would be. And what’s more is, I didn’t know what to do about it. I hadn’t known what to do about it for ages. What happens if you don’t carry on? Maybe I didn’t want to. I couldn’t believe I was feeling this for the first time to the backing track of Jools Holland destroying RAYE’s Escapism.
To be clear, the thought that I had that evening wasn’t that I wanted to die permanently. I just wanted to not be alive for a year or so. I imagined my resurrection on NYE 2024, having unconsciously lived a successful year, and picking it back up from there. I wanted the adult equivalent of unknowingly being carried from car seat to bed, just to wake up on Sunday morning to the smell of bacon. But until Elon Musk turns his attention to time travel instead of fannying around with lo-res cars, that’s not an option. What was an option, however, was taking the advice of my 11-year-old self. In other words, it was time for me to run.
A few minutes in to January 1st 2024, I realised the only place that made sense for me to be was the adult equivalent of Disneyland Paris (NYC) eating a croissant (double cheese pastrami on rye no pickles). And testing my childhood theory on what to do if you don’t like your life is exactly how I find myself writing this piece from the sofa of my Manhattan apartment.
Arranging the trip took months. I rent a £2.5k a month flat in Brixton, so a home exchange (using the popular website HomeExchange) was the only way for me to feasibly be in NYC without the threat of bankruptcy. After 3 months of conversing with potential swap matches, arranging cleaners, storage, and writing detailed handover notes of my cats likes (food) and dislikes (hunger), I was on my way. I’d be spending the whole of September 2024 in NYC.
One of the worst parts of the build up to my trip was facing the unavoidable question "Wow, that's amazing! What are you going for?". My inconsistent improv answers of “errr performance art stuff” or “gallery research” or “I just feel like it” managed to somewhat paper over the “I don’t know what else to do other than run away”. Thinking about it, maybe one of my mistakes over the last few years has been my lack of honesty with those around me. But I’d like to see you start a client Zoom call with small talk, casually sprinkle in “oh, I just can’t see a future for myself anymore”, and then proceed to discuss the print spec of a brochure.
September arrived quicker than I thought it would. I packed. I said goodbye to my cat. I ran.
As I write this, I’m on day 6 of my month here. The first few days have been a sickly cocktail of napping, ordering in Panda Express orange chicken, and sprinting to 7-Eleven at quarter to eleven to squash my cravings for a Big Gulp Slurpee (I want that stuff on an IV drip). And although I'm beginning to feel more like ‘myself’, I worry that the window for using jet lag as a plausible excuse to avoid meeting up with people is about to expire. I’m really starting to understand the vicious cycle of not wanting to see people because you might be too sad, and becoming even sadder because you’re not seeing any people.
My sadness isn’t loud or fantastic. If it was an Elvis film, it’d be directed by Sofia Coppola, not Baz Lurman. It’s a sort of low-frequency hum that something’s off. Sometimes there’s elements of Baz; the jazz hands of crying during therapy or wearing the same pants for a few days in a row, but that’s rare. I can meet up with friends, join my Zoom meetings, bring my more low-effort project ideas into fruition, but there’s this core numbness that won’t shift. The unavoidable feeling that I’m just doing these things to make it to the next day. And operating on the idea that it has to get better.
I know there’s flaws to this plan. I think even 11-year-old me knew that, on some level. I know all the cliches; you can't run from your problems, the grass isn't always greener, and so on. What my 11-year-old self hadn't yet experienced—and therefore hadn't factored in—was not disliking one's life, but disliking oneself. Saying that, she did get some things right; like ranking boys in order of hotness on a bar chart in her diary, or dotting the ‘i’ of her signature with a little heart, or writing letters to her future self to remind me of my alleged motto ‘forget love I’d rather fall in chocolate’ (see below). How could I not at least try her silly life-reset plan? What’s the worst that could happen? I end up with a stamp in my passport and a lousy hat? I’ll take it.
My hope is that by being in a new environment, surrounded by the vibrant energy of New York City and it’s Big Gulp Slurpees, I can at least shake off the numbness that accompanies the sad. That I can get to know me again and stop beating myself up about all the not knowing. It’s easy to tell myself that I need to use this time to explore, or create, or meet new people, but in reality I think part of running away is to not have a plan. To have no expectations of my time or myself. And if there’s anyone who doesn’t have a plan, it’s me.
My other hope is that I look back on this writing in a week, or a month, or on NYE 2024, and cringe at how sad I was. I want to be in disbelief about how far from that (this) I feel now (then). I want one of my friends to read this out loud in a horrible attempt at a Manc accent, whilst we piss ourselves and shout “can’t relate” over the noise of Jools butchering a 2024 banger.
I think there’s power in writing about this. I know experiencing pointlessness isn’t hot, or funny, or even that much of a unique experience, but if I could’ve read this locked in the bathroom on NYE 2023, then maybe I would’ve felt a bit less hopeless.
I’ll check in on the flight home,
Harriet x