Needless to say, this world was not made for me. Neither I for it.
And don't worry, this is not a reason for me to remove myself from it, but rather a conclusion necessary in order to better understand my place in this spinning, cooling (or "warming"?) ball of formerly molten rock, hurtling through space, spinning, and being sucked into the greedy vacuum of nothingness at ever increasing speeds.
I grew up in the comfortable, uniquely American and Southern, suburbs of Atlanta, GA. Three bedrooms, two baths, Mom and Dad, two kids... scratch that, three kids... then a move to a bigger house. Dogs, cats, fish, small pet rodents. Good grades, high school jobs, church, summer camp, cul-de-sac's, picket fences, two-car families, and one family per house. For the most part, I knew only people like myself, and any differences I observed tended to be reserved to those on TV, those on the other side of the car windows and locked car doors when driving downtown (rare), and the few children of immigrant families who lived in my school district. Oh, and there was one kid in my neighborhood whose mother was from England.
And, somehow, I always knew this misrepresented the world, and the "exotic" rest of the world seemed far more enticing than the boring regularity, predictability, and safety of life in Acworth. Commonness, I felt - and still feel - breeds complacency and blandness. The status quo, like vegetables and fish, is good when new, but quickly loses the qualities that made it enticing in the first place if around too long.
I sought out exposure to things not of my own background, prided myself in being decidedly in favor of the unfamiliar, and experienced other cultures mainly through my imaginative desires to be somewhere else. To be someone else.
I fantasized about learning I was a member of the royal family (a dream later realized), daydreamed about my Native American ancestors, and coveted my ancient relatives who enjoyed (or did they?) simpler lives of subsistence and survival on the Highlands of Scotland, farms in Wales and France, villages in Germany.
And yet I appreciate my existence for what it is, for what I know, and for what I've been able to do. For the people I've met, the events I've witnessed, the feelings I've felt, the thoughts I've thought.
And then Atlanta and the nurturing and spoiling suburbs pooped me out, about as uncomfortably and under confusing circumstances as my original situation at birth.
I sold or gave away almost all I owned, bought a plane ticket, left everyone I had ever known, signed a contract to take on a profession I knew nothing about, and set off confused, anxious, alone, West, to a place I knew nothing about, had never seen, a place devoid of connotations, without a functioning schematic location in my mind. The fifth largest city in the nation, and with the youngest population of the top five, and still without any souls I knew, disconnected form the life I knew - this is what I wanted, isn't it? Isn't this my dream, I thought, to leave all I knew and start over? I had done this on vacation in New York, and had fun with the scary, strange world I experienced, but New York is sufficiently... well... cool. Phoenix, on the other hand, I knew nothing about.
If I were moving to New York City, people would be impressed. "Oooooh, New York!" they'd say, as their eyes glazed over for a bit, staring just past me, imagining bright lights and fashionably urban glamour.
Phoenix, on the other hand, is a different place altogether. Like LA without the money, glamour, and coast, Phoenix sits in the desert, and that's about all it does. With no natural source of water, it would die in less than a week if the Colorado were to dry up.
When I told people I was moving to Phoenix, most people were unable to answer for a second or two, and fell back on the safe filler when words escape the mind:
"Oh..." shift weight, look away, look back "... huh."
So, there I sat in the airport, having impressed no one with my decision, leaving behind all I had known, having packed frantically the night before, and feeling entirely unprepared emotionally, anxious and confused, uncertain, and unable to chat with strangers. I had always watched planes fly over my house, dreamed of leaving behind all I knew, and it was actually about to happen. How was I supposed to feel? I didn't know, and still don't.
I bought a Sprite Zero, caffeine free, sugar free, "very low sodium," basically water with bad stuff, in hopes it would settle my nerves and situate me somewhere between having to pee and being dehydrated on the painfully long (four hour) flight from Southeast to Southwest. This trip used to take months for the Pioneers, but at least they got to walk around.
I opened the Sprite, looking out the window at the acres of concrete, a walkway attached to no plane, sparse clouds, and an enormous and pale blue sky. The Sprite, apparently well-shaken, sprayed all over me. As I had it firmly held between my legs, it soaked my whole where-you-get-wet-when-you-pee-yourself region, and thus I left Atlanta with as few posessions and as little dignity as I entered it.
