The Problem with Being Good at Running Away

The other day, fully conscious of the fact that I have lost 15, ok maybe more like 30, FINE, almost an HOUR to scrolling funny Insta reels to escape from house fires (literal and metaphorical), I came across a reel that hit me right in the feels.

It was a video of some furry creature, like maybe a chinchilla, running around in mad zoomies, and the voiceover in a Nigerian accent said this:

“I don’t think you understand

The heritage

And ATLHETICISM

it takes

To be a professional,

whimsical

SKEDDADLER”.

Besides being hilarious, it kind of felt very relatable to me.

Because that’s what I am. Or have been for the last fifteen years.

A professional, whimsical SKEDDADLER.

I have skeddadled halfway across the world on a bike. I have also skedaddled out of relationships, universities, jobs, and likely a career or two, plus places and sketchy situations and depression and bone surgery and existential crises and such like.

It’s my go-to pattern; whatever is happening around me – or internally, or philosophically, or hypothetically – I tend to take one good look at it and SKEDDADLE.

Not exit gracefully, per se; not move in a purposeful, controlled manner, not depart in a calm and collected way, not exactly travel in a clear trajectory or with a clear goal as such, no – it’s usually a full-on, feet-all-over-the-place SKEDDADLE, much like that slightly unhinged chinchilla in the Instagram reel.

Which, you know, is all good and well, isn’t it? Some people spiral, some people buy BMWs, some people get married or divorced, some people go to therapy or Bali, some find Jesus or community or #gratitude, I don’t know; the point is, we’re all sort of set in our own ways.

Ways that have worked for us before, more or less, ways that feel safe and familiar, ways that… we operate.

And barring a tragedy, a revelation, or at least a magic mushroom trip significant enough to send you into outer space and back to become one with the universal consciousness, we don’t really change that much.

Like maybe we start eating a bit healthier, treat people a bit better, finally get that strange growth looked at, maybe we start being a bit more conservative with our bank accounts and more liberal with our emotions (or the other way round, depends which side of forty you find yourself on), start flossing and doing calisthenics and face our parents’ mortality for the first time while pondering mortgages, geopolitics, or vegan recipes, maybe we adjust a little here and there, compromise on a thing or two, get a new hobby or Botox or a dog, find ourselves too tired to argue and but too stubborn to let go, and the world keeps spinning, and honestly, we’re just too damn exhausted to truly change because, also honestly, what’s the point?

Besides lower cholesterol and maybe a new helmet?

We’ve made it this far, didn’t we?

More or less.

It worked, so far.

More or less.

Right?

That’s sort of what I’ve assumed; yes, personal growth and all that, but I mean, the world forces you to do that anyhow – people, circumstances, life forces you to do that. To an extent.

But not radically.

Well, so here’s my question: what happens when you’ve been a professional, whimsical skeddadler pretty much your whole life, and then the world says, haha, good one, and puts you in the most un-skeddadable circumstances ever?

Because that’s precisely what I’ve gotten myself into here, and honestly, it’s a strange place to be.

I went from having a floating homebase in Andalusia to moving back to Lithuania.

I went from having a loose schedule of “Let’s See What Happens” to being officially declared fit for service because yeah, I’ve also joined the Lithuanian Armed Forces Volunteer Corps.

From thinking “well so I’ll do this one thing, and then I’ll be Mexico for a bit, then Peru, I think, oh and maybe let’s ship my bike to Cape Town or Uruguay? Idk; ah, and here’s my mid-life crisis, thank you very much, I’ll have that in Patagonia with a side of adventure, very well; tomorrow, I don’t know, tomorrow will be tomorrow, I shall Adapt and Pivot” to facing my mother’s end-of-life care, a geopolitical shitstorm of epic proportions, and an abrupt halt to all the foreseeable skedaddling.

And, yes, I brought it all upon myself. I’m aware of that. No one’s asked me to do jack shit about anything.

I felt compelled to do it. The Lithuania project, the military, the commitments, the 6 in 16 Ride, the whole nine fucking yards, all at once, in the span of what, barely two months?

It’s essentially like hitting yourself in the face with a shovel and then wondering why you’ve got a nosebleed.

So I’m not entirely surprised at all the motional whiplash and backlash, the almost daily What The Fuck Have I Done moments, all the trashing about, all the chaos.

But I am, still, somewhat surprised.

Because it all made sense in my head. Thus, the decisions and the world had to make sense accordingly.

Doesn’t work that way, it seems.

It works the other way round.

It works by a conscious effort to shove yourself forward, quite unceremoniously, even when every fiber of your being is kicking and screaming to just SKEDADDLE.

It works by showing up like pesky little chinchilla even when your mother doesn’t recognize you anymore, your country says, okay, but FILL OUT 97 FORMS FIRST, your house literally burns down but you come back with buckets of water, a local repairman, and your chakras re-aligned, when you haven’t seen sun for 47 consecutive days but still find BEAUTY in the Lithuanian woods (all while getting lost on a daily basis and returning with an ego bruise and a not-insignificant amount of ticks clinging to your pants. EW); when you have less than twenty days to organize self, 3 rescue dogs, a living situation that amounts to looking like a crime scene, and your bank account that has most DEFINITELY experienced better days so you can ride across six countries in sixteen days to get support for Rally 4x4 Ukraine; when NATO helicopters close the sky over your capital city because your neighbor’s gone berserk but you try to mostly ignore it and FOCUS on, I don’t know, groceries; when most of your friends are thoroughly convinced you’ve lost the plot yet you stick around anyway.

When you find out that the professional, whimsical SKEDDADLER is no longer a viable life choice and there’s nowhere to skedaddle to…

Then, well? Then you change adult nappies, pick the ticks off your dogs’s coats, appreciate the fuck out of your friends, present yourself to the military admissions office on a regular Tuesday, learn to live in a dual reality of Everything’s Fine and OK My Country Is Literally On the Brink of Invasion, LOL, you pick yourself up for the fourth time that morning and dust yourself off again and you get to it, I suppose.

And the kicker? Most days, I don’t know. Some days? I think that maybe I've been training for this shit my whole life without knowing it.

All those years of quick pivots, making do with whatever's at hand, figuring it out as I go – maybe that wasn't just running away. Maybe that was boot camp for the day when running away stops being an option.

Same Mad Chinchilla energy, just pointed in the opposite direction.

Maybe the heritage and athleticism it takes to be a professional whimsical skeddadler is exactly what you need to be a professional whimsical STAYER.

Who knew?

Maybe all us skeddadlers aren't the flaky disasters we thought we were.

Maybe we're just people who needed the right corner to get backed into before we figured out what we were really made of.

So quit scrolling and go do the hard thing you've been avoiding.

The chinchilla in you knows what it is.