Against My Better Judgment

I am putting this out in the Universe. I like you. I am smitten. I love talking to you, and I want to bake for you and smell your shoulders. And it's totally freaking me out.

Just Leave What's Left

Twenty eight years ago, I was born in the hallway of a hospital. I've been on the run ever since.

Even though I'm a little too old for this, I ask my parents to describe the day I was born every year. It was cold and dark, and they had to drive from Scotville to Albion because I came early. I know my Dad stopped on the way for smokes and that I was born in the hallway while he was putting on scrubs. I couldn't wait. They didn't tell me until I was 18 that he wasn't there to see me born, but I don't think it's such of a much. I spent my first night out of the hospital in a hotel room, and I slept in a drawer.

I parse over this story and try to find some lasting clues about my life. I so urgently came into this world. That has to mean something, right? Did I know then what I was supposed to do or be, and I forgot?

The last two years have been the hardest of my life, even harder than my deranged childhood. I have felt lonely and pierced. Today, I still feel like I walk on the edges of real life, but I am getting closer and closer to something...genuine.

Can't Stand Being Home

And I can't stand being gone.

Lately, all I want to do is sit alone in my filthy apartment and listen to the quiet. I feel kind of hemmed in by the cold and my own accumulating inertia. I think I am my best when I am alone, but I know that's not true. I am best when I am around people I love and that love can reflect all around the room. This secret side of me is not working. I feel torn between the part of me that believes hard work is the measure of life and the part of me that just wants more. More money, more time, nicer towels. But my heart is still joyful and I am still pretty fucking stoked to be alive.

So

Who wants to go halfsies on a farm with me? I'm thinking chickens, tomatoes, whatever. It all depends on the soil and the location. I just don't think I can keep the pace with a life where I cry in the bathroom at work and have no connection to anything with roots.

I grew up in the dirt. I didn't have jam from the store until I was in middle school. I've planted corn, weeded it, and run through the resulting field with my sisters. People act like living off the land is this great new thing, and I'm like, hello. That's called being poor. Did it. Done it.

And that's what I want, again. Not necessarily to be poor, although I am kind of poor in the money way. I just want to be far away from the world and live in the dirt and be so tired at the end of the night. I don't understand the world. If my divorce has taught me anything, it's that. I'm different. Maybe it's my parents fault, and their love of corporal punishment. Maybe it's my shitty neurons or the offbeat of my heart. But I don't get most people and it hurts. I just want to be alone with the people I love on a farm, where we can grow our destiny.