Today seemed like every other day until I returned from taking Madi to school. The garage light was on, doors open, and my younger 2 boys were gone. I'm sure you can imagine the panic running through my head as I went back and forth between thoughts of them playing a trick and hiding or being kidnapped. Neither were true. After 5 minutes of frantic searching and yelling I saw a shadow through the window by the front door... they were standing on the porch debating whether to come inside.
Life for my two middle schoolers has apparently become harder then they wanted to admit or could handle. They told me of their frustration with being overwhelmed in class, not being able to focus on the directions given, and then feeling they would get in trouble at home if they complained.
My 14yr old had been planning this since Christmas, bringing my 11yr old into the plan in February. Official plans has begun weeks ago. Geoff had printed maps at school saying, 'you'd be amazed what they let you do on the computer if they think it's for a project.' Water bottles had been filled and placed in the fridge days ago. Survival backpacks had been refilled with blankets, rope, extra clothes, books, CD players, a bag of change, flashlights, and an umbrella.
They planned to head West on their bikes toward Benton City, Prosser, then on to Seattle where they'd clean people's yards to earn money and eventually sell their bikes to purchase plane tickets. The goal was travel to LA, then Florida, New York, and finally Paris. Big dreams unlikely to happen but I have to give them points for planning.
Obviously my little actors had us all fooled that life was okay. We failed in a big way to see how much they were really hurting. Life will be making some big changes. I'm still not sure what changed their minds and made them come back home, they had already made it a few blocks away. I'm just glad they did.
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