I don't feel like I'm really taking advantage of living.

I went to the park today and took some notes in a journal. This is kind of an extension of what I wrote:

I’m at the park, sitting on the side of a hill in the scratchy, brown grass. Pine needles stab through my jeans and into my legs.

I feel kind of removed from the dog-walkers and the stroller-pushers and the young couples sitting close on old blankets. Guys in caps and flip flops tossing frisbees. Kids shrieking at each other in the playground.

I hear cars driving and wind blowing and construction constructing. The rhythmic creaking of the swings.

And I wonder if I am just as much a part of this scene as they are.

I need to stop fighting things so much. I need to just let my damn hair be curly. Just let the damn wind tousle it even more.

There’s this girl at the bottom of the hill. She looks about my age. She has big white headphones around her neck; she’s holding a stuffed animal of The Lorax in her hands. She had it on her shoulder for awhile. Like a companion.

She isn’t doing anything; she's just sitting.  

Two men in nice slacks approach her, hand her a pamphlet, say some words, and leave. They trudge up the hill to where I lie awkwardly in the grass. They do the same for me.

I look at the pamphlet in my hands. It's white and glossy with blue letters. “You’re Invited to Gospel Baptist Church.”

The girl reads this pamphlet thoroughly, cover to cover. The entire Romans Road.

She sits with her head against her fist, staring at...I'm not sure what. She leaves, clutching The Lorax under the crook of her arm.

I wonder what she’s thinking about, and why she came to the park today, and what she’d be doing if she wasn’t here. And I wonder if she’s going home now. And I wonder if home is a good place for her.

And I really hope it is.

   I am a totally ridiculous person. I feel sadness at the strangest, dumbest things.

   Like when I'm pouring a bowl of cereal and a few Cheerios fall from the bag into the bottom of the box. I have this moment of lingering sadness because I know they are going to get stale and thrown out and wasted, and I feel like this waste represents some greater, darker burden.

  I feel sad when food expires

                   when instruments are out of tune

                                   when plants wither and die

   I somehow feel sad when I walk out of a disgusting, horrendous public restroom. I get this lump in my throat when I look at our Christmas tree. I pick up an old book and touch the brown pages and smell the familiar smell and feel a dampening sadness.

   Subconsciously, I understand these feelings, knowing they somehow represent something more important. But I don't know if I can express them in writing at all, or reason them out to any normal person.

   I would really like for someone to understand this, actually understand, not think they do or pretend to or roll their eyes at me, but actually understand this rather melodramatic despair of mine over loneliness and emptiness and waste. This burden that pulls everyone down.

   This using and taking advantage of and throwing away and lack of shit-giving.

      there's a song I can't sing
                  
              a poem I can't pen

                  a secret I can't tell

                        a feeling I can't express

                               a picture I can't paint

I can’t shake this feeling.

I feel on edge.
        
                 Restless.
              
                       Bored.
                             
                            Anxious.
　
I am the patient jiggling her foot in the doctor's office. The husband checking his watch while his wife is in the dressing room. The agitated driver stuck in traffic.


Don’t get me wrong, I have a great life.
I have a good family. Good friends. I live in a nice house. I have a job that I usually like, a car, gas in the car, and college coming in less than two months.

What more could I ask for? What more could I possibly want?

Well, sometimes…

I want to leave everything behind. Run away - not from anything, but to something. I want to just keep driving. I want to just keep running.

Until I run out of road. Until I run out of breath.


I’ll toss my phone into the lake. I'll feel elated, free, and foolish. No one would need to come looking for me because I won’t need to be found.

Here’s the deal:

I’m tired of reading about fictional characters having adventures and actually being alive and having none.

I want to go somewhere cold and barren. I want to go somewhere tropical and alive.

I want to explore an underground cave, chase a tornado, hike across miles of ice, ride a helicopter to a gorgeous hidden waterfall.

I want to go rock climbing and cliff diving. I want to go hiking, swim in a warm, tropical ocean, see a gorgeous sunrise, learn how to scuba dive, learn how to surf, swing from a rope into a lake. Lie in a hammock and write a song to the sound of insects and birds. Stand in the freezing cold of the Arctic and wonder why such a desolate, fierce, unforgiving place exists. Dive underwater in a tropical ocean and be aware of the miles of undiscovered world beneath me. Drive a boat miles out to sea and feel the wind tangling my hair. I want to play guitar on a street corner and have people wonder who the hell I am.

I’ll work when I need money and relax when I feel like slowing down. There’s no rush, no pressure, no real commitment. I can stay as long or as little as I’d like.

No one will know my real name, but everyone will be my friend.

Eventually, I’ll decide I want what the world tells me is a life and I’ll settle down somewhere.

I’ll have a million pictures to share. I’ll have a thousand stories to tell. I’ll have a hundred friends to visit.