All my friends of a certain age want to run away from home

[MareofBeasttown]

I thought it was just me, but after speaking to a bunch of friends around my age ( late 40s to early 50s) I have realised that all of us want to run away from home and fuck off to a desert island somewhere. We all have wildly different home lives, jobs and circumstances, but this is the common factor. Of course the pandemic has made things worse, but I don't think it's only the pandemic. Myself, I want to run away just to avoid being asked "Where is the sriracha?" when the sriracha is right on the counter.

If it weren't for the guilt, I would be there too. Told my single friend (no kids) only last night how I'd love a week alone in. Hotel!! (She was saying she was too lazy to book a week away for herself.).

Same demographic and yes.

Those asking what sriracha is could ask their mumsnet machines Google... This shit is what makes the OP want to run away 😉

I dream of time away alone …………just me & Gordon

So why don’t you? What’s stopping you?

Well, I've learnt a new word today. Only mid-30s and I already want to run away, there's no hope is there.

What's sriracha?

@allthegoodusernameshavegone

I dream of time away alone …………just me & Gordon

Gordon Brown? Off you go then!

What has gone wrong that your partners and children can't or won't look after themselves?

Looked up sriracha and it sounds like such a middle class thing. I bet you all eat pesto too

Gordon Brown? Off you go then!

Jeeze thanks, that killed the dream

@theworldsbiggestcrocodile

Yep, single parenthood is tough, but that fortnightly weekend break is enough to reset my brain and my mood (mostly anyway)

I was all proud that I knew what sriracha was, when I realised it was because my husband bought a box of out of date sriracha Walkers crisps cheap off a bloke in the pub.

Not feeling so fancy now am I?

I’m 40 and would happily join you. I’m absolutely sick to death of being the ‘brain’ for the whole family. It’s bloody exhausting.

It's perimenopause. I'm sure I read somewhere that estrogen is the 'caring/nurturing' hormone. When it starts to decrease we start to get feelings of 'Oh fuck this shit. Find your own sriracha. I'm off'.

Yes, yes. In the depths of lockdown I thought the quarantine hotels looked terribly inviting...I am 45 the DCs are 14,17 & 47. FT hospital doctor.

I follow the missing people stories with great interest as always wonder how they truly manage it. I don't mean ones that are murdered etc but those that just leave without a trace. Then I think I wouldn't want my parents to worry etc but I often just want to "disappear" (I don't mean that in a suicidal way, honestly, I just want time out from life!) It's all highly impractical and I'd have a dd in tow, who wouldn't be asking for the sriracha but some other obvious to naked eye item.

@Kite22

Probably missing the point here, but what is sriracha ?

Chili sauce?

@Moonopoly

‘Wife work’ and the ‘mental load’ are probably the reason most women want to run away. I always joke that I’d love to have a wife…

Exactly this. Coupled with peri-menopause and rage!

You’re not the only one @MareofBeasttown…

Yes wife work blablabla.
But also the ability to draw better boundaries with age which I can’t stand those attitudes anymore

I did feel like you, definitely, but now the ‘children’ have moved out I feel a lot more relaxed. Before I seemed to have to be involved in every conversation ie

‘Can you ask Dad if I can have a lift?’
‘Did Lizzie borrow my mascara?’
‘Is Katie wearing her black top to the pub?’
‘Ask the kids if they’re in for dinner?’
‘Has the cat been fed?’

99.9% of the time I didn’t have any answers. Now it’s just me, my husband and the pets it’s very quiet.

Yeah, am not posh or fancy. Just Asian. Our other household essentials are even more eccentric. But the sriracha is not the point.

I think the fact that all my friends are feeling this way means that it is not our partners or children, but just something hormonal.

Oh hell yes, definitely heading for that train.
I have HAD ENOUGH.

How long until the last one leaves - I was 50.
Retired now - so nice. Just DH but also have a cleaner and gardener. mostly because he wouldn't help

Knowing my luck my desert island would have another desert island right next to it with some fe**er making a racket!

@MareofBeasttown

For Sriracha substitute any household item: sugar, ketchup, coffee...I only said Sriracha because DS loves it, but apparently has some kind of brain defect where he can't find anything on his own🙄 Peri-menopause is not helping. Find myself constantly irritated by everyone and everything. No doubt DH feels exactly the same...

I was about to post a comment saying I regularly wanted to do a runner until I was diagnosed as peri-menopausal and got prescribed HRT and now I no longer want to rip everyone's heads off on a daily basis.