August 15, 2012
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Obligatory Rain Dance
Two days. Two more days until the grand exodus. The visit to my family has still not veered from surreal, even though a few of the relatives that were on hard times have found employment since I arrived, and feel like they are getting their lives back. It’s just the others that are trying to convince me to stay on fallow ground, when I can see the emptiness in their eyes that kind of puts me at unease. And the fact that they act offended when I say I’ve got to move on, as if this bit of backwoods is the only place to live, and that I’ll be perfectly happy if I just come back, settle down on some farm and start popping out children, and go back to singing in church as my only artistic outlet. I feel like that wasn’t my life back then, that was just a way to survive with my sanity somewhat intact. I was doing a dance to keep my secrets tucked under the veil, which is why within weeks of leaving for college, I felt like I could finally breathe. I guess that’s one good skill I’ve honed, that people tend to think that I’m just like them, that they see themselves in me a bit, and that I can chameleon pretty easily. Someday I’m pretty sure I’ll use that as a weapon, but hopefully only a weapon for good instead of betrayal.
I keep collecting small things, like hawthornes and bull quartz and yarrow, as if I were about to cast a spell. If I were into that, I’m sure that would be one helluva spell. But, in my walks lately, those are just the things I’ve been drawn to, for some unconscious reason. Maybe I’m just building a small memory, and those trinkets are there to remind me where I came from, without any feeling of “I need to stay here”. Because that’s the strange thing. Despite everyone’s pleading, I have no interest in staying here. Never have. It’s something I’ve had tucked in the back of my mind for over a decade now. It’s the one thing that so many people, including my father, have tried, but never gathered the courage to do. Which is why it bewilders me that so many people seem shocked that I have no reason to stay.
Comments (5)
it always amazes me when people are shocked when someone leaves and it is like they never saw the reality of the situation, or could believe that someone else could find what they find acceptable unacceptable.
So are you soon off to college and a new life.
@Grannys_Place - Oh, no, I graduated from college two years ago. I’m leaving the town I went to college in, and the job that was my after-school job that I got stuck at because there was nothing else. I’ve been self-sufficient financially for all these years, so money is not a problem. I’m trying to actually find a job that uses my degree and my talents. I think it’s that no one here understands why I’m leaving, because the conversation usually goes something like “I’m trying to find a job that uses my degree” “What’s your degree in?” “Theatre. I’m a highly trained theatre technician. I’m the one that makes the stage pretty.” “Oh, you can go to that one place in Little Rock/Hot Springs/ Fayetteville/Texarkana or work for one of the TV stations.” “Um, those are only volunteer community theatres. They can’t afford to pay anyone” “Oh, then you can just do it as a hobby and get a real job…” “If I leave, I can find a real job in the major I chose, that I worked for six long years in, that I got really really really good at, and do theatre professionally, and get paid to do the one thing in the entire world that makes me happy” And then they change the subject.
Opps sorry i got a little confused
@Grannys_Place - I understand now where you got confused. I was comparing the first time I moved away for college, eight years ago, and how much I changed as soon as I realized I didn’t have to pretend for anyone anymore.
Do what you have to do. Go where you have to go. No regret. We only live once, let’s make the best of it.