Red's Got Wanderlust

[RedGlitter]

While I was running errands today I was thinking about where I live. Y'all know I live in the desert. I live in a not-so-small river resort town on the Colorado River. I look at people around town and they look the same. Hard-ridden, worn down and like they have no dreams left. Then I go home and look at myself in the mirror to see if I'm turning into them.

My town sucks.

The only things to do out here are going down to the river, but you have to pay the Indian Tribe to use "their" river unless you go up near the dam...you can go across the river and blow your paycheck on the tables...you can go to any of about 40 bars around here and drink your problems away...you can go to the lake and fight the tourists...and you can go to Walmart.

That's about it.

So I was looking at this mountain today while I was waiting outside the grocery. It's a distinctive mountain called "Elk Tooth," leading up into the Black Hills and I can see it from my back door and various other places. When I was a kid it would comfort me because I knew I was close to home if I could see the mountain. But that was 30 years ago and now I'm sick to death of seeing it. I feel like this town is sucking me up. It's just another hick town like so many others.

You know what my town is officially billed as?

"The City of Bullhead City." It's even on the official seal. Can we say redundant?!

Summer always does this to me. In the winter I can ignore my life slipping away but in summer, the heat comes up off the asphalt and it emanates from the buildings and the desert sand and it seeps into my soul and whispers to me "Time's going faster." And I can't help but hear it.

I am starved for culture. I want to live around people who know about art and history and crave gorgeous architecture like I do. People who live to cook and to sit on verandas with mint juleps and talk about the world's problems. People who try to make a difference in the world from wherever they're standing. Where exist men who appreciate women who act like women and not like these haggard old fishwives I see everywhere, dragging 9 kids behind them that they cannot possibly afford.

I see no hope where I live. How can anyone live without hope? What's the point?

We've been talking about moving. Right now we (my father and I, we're a team now) have more than we can say grace over. My credit's shot to hell and I owe the Revenuers about two grand. Thats' just for starters.

He wants to move to Oklahoma where we have family. I know OK is not exactly a hotbed of culture or the place I dream about but in some places it might be better than this.

I thought I would always live here. I know this desert and the river like the back of my hand. I know every plant, every animal; I can smell the monsoon before it comes. I love my state and I'm proud to be an Arizonan. Not just anyone could live in this hellforsaken snakepit.

But I'm ready to pull up stakes. It could be done but it would be...scary.

My grave is here. It seems odd to be this young and already know where my body will be laid. I'll be in the same graveyard as my mother, eventually my dad and a mess of kids I went to school with.

That's another thing. Every year someone else my friends and I once knew turns up dead. And we say the same dumb things: "Oh remember him in chemistry, how he blew up the lab?"

I don't want to be remembered for whatever I did in high school. But I am. There's something wrong about that. Like no matter what good I do in the world, I'll still be the weird chick who dated Jim Buck or fought with some cheerleader or drove a 65 Mustang or whatever....

When I meet people I haven't seen in years and they say "Oh you were so funny in school! I remember when..." I think "School's over! Haven't you gotten past that yet?!"

Maybe it's my fault. I never got married and I have no children which is fine by me, but I see that these things are yardsticks by which other people measure their worth, themselves, their lives. I don't have that stuff.

Is it like this in every town? Do you have to go away in order to become a real person?

Do you have to go where people don't know you in order to be seen for what you are...what you want to be?

Don't ask why I haven't started a journal here yet. These rants just happen sometimes.

Terri is searching...

...but not finding...

[Hawke]

Hello, Red.

I have experienced the same wanderlust. I grew up in a town of 200 people (and technically I lived 8 miles out of that town). I have seen and experienced the small-town life, and was not happy. I have vowed that when I finished college (which I have finally done) I will move to a big city, somewhere with culture - museums, music halls and theatres (which I have not yet done).

Regardless, I'm sure there are plenty here who'll virtually sit on the veranda and discuss the world with you. Where we've been, how we got there, and where we're going. No mint julep for me, though. I'll take a bourbon - neat.

-Hawke

[RedGlitter]

Hi, Hawke.

Wow...200 people?? Ok, that is a small town. What am I whining about? My town at last count was about 39,101.

I'm glad you can understand what I'm going on about. I've never been a city girl by any means but I'm getting kinda tired of living in this gopher hole.

Some years back, I flew to Seattle WA to meet some friends. It was like a whole new world for me. Places to go and things to do. So much stuff going on. They even plant flowerboxes in the alleyways! I was so amazed by that. Here our alleys are for drunks and drug deals but Seattle actually thinks to plant flowers where nobody would look. I came home and this place seemed even smaller. For a time I was fixing to move to Seattle but things happened and I didn't. It would have been nice though.

[koan]

I've moved a few times. Usually big moves when I do it.

As long as you are moving to something and not just away from it, it usually works out well.

[RedGlitter]

Yeah...that's a good point, Koan.

I would be running from some stuff for sure. Maybe almost as much as I'd be running toward other things.

I'd be running from myself and....running toward myself. AUGGGH!!! I've always been a paradox. It's the bane of my existence.

My friend says she just lives life however it is and it's just there. I think that's a luxury and I don't know how to do it. She says "But you always think about stuff. You always have. It's like you analyze everything." I'm like "you mean everybody doesn't do this?"

[koan]

If you are running away from who you know you don't want to be to find out who you do want to be then it's very important to follow your wanderlust, imo. Even purely running away can be good sometimes just to get somewhere that you can focus before you *go back* to deal with it.

The key is that you aren't likely to find somewhere to call home until you know what you are going to. You might build a home in the next place you go but it won't be there waiting for you. At the same time the longer you take to start building the longer it takes to get the home.

[cars]

RedGlitter;620241 wrote: Yeah...that's a good point, Koan.

I would be running from some stuff for sure. Maybe almost as much as I'd be running toward other things.



I'd be running from myself and....running toward myself. AUGGGH!!! I've always been a paradox. It's the bane of my existence.



My friend says she just lives life however it is and it's just there. I think that's a luxury and I don't know how to do it. She says "But you always think about stuff. You always have. It's like you analyze everything." I'm like "you mean everybody doesn't do this?"


Hi Red, running from stuff "within you", can't seem to really be acheived. As you are you, where ever you go. Been there, done that! Moving somewhere to fix things & bringing all your old stuff, including living with parent situation would just mean same old stuff, in new place. IMO, only radical changes will provide radical results, possibly even improvement. Over the years, I moved to 4 different states, and the enemy within also made those same moves.

It was not untill I made & accepted radical changes in my mind & way of life, that allowed changes to my perspective of how & what I thought things should/could be. Change can be good, but it must be absolute!

Good Luck & only Best Wishes!

[AussiePam]

A Canadian girl I know took six months out and went and worked as a volunteer with kids in Kenya. She had to save her fare - but got some sponsorships to help with that. Her accommodation and food were provided by the orphanage or school. Maybe that's a bit radical, but she really enjoyed the experience. I still hope you somehow manage to get one day to Tuscany. Sure, you take yourself with you when you hit the road, but sometimes just breathing different air gives a whole new perspective. Very best wishes.

[Patsy Warnick]

Red

I'm from Seattle - lived in & around the area for 30 years. I had the same wanderlust. I had to get away from the same old people, same everything. I'd run into people, nothing new, the people I would've liked to see had enough sense to leave along time ago. I had to get out of that daily cloudy,rainy depressing routine. One day I packed my car and drove until I found sunshine, never been happier, and I'd never move back, visit yes, move no.

Climate has alot to do with your mental welfare, and being young, its something to consider before taking a leap.

Maybe the change you need is living on your own, let your Dad go to Oklahoma.

Your young Red, only you can control your life.

Good luck

Patsy

[RedGlitter]

No such thing as going it alone. My dad needs me and truthfully I need him as well. We have had our grievances but we're family and that's a done deal. I know I posted that sorryass rant about us and I wish I hadn't but family is like a marriage. You never know what it's like unless you're the one in it. I'm okay with it right now.

I'm just tired of everything being an uphill fight all the time.

I'm trying to save my dogs and every damn day the woman I'm counting on throws something else at me. Another problem I have to fix. I have to accommodate her because she's the only chance at salvation we have. That's the heaviest thing on my mind right now. Then I've got finances and things I have to clear up and that's a world of hurt right there. I'm mad at myself for doing stupid stuff and not doing the right things. Upping and splitting for OK or anywhere really seems like a ticket out but I know it's not. These things will follow me.

Ehh. I'm just mad about my dogs this morning. That's all I have to worry about right now. Everything else can take a number.

I've heard that about Seattle, Patsy...the dreariness. But that would be perfect for me. I've always loved those days more than sunny ones.

I have to stop posting whatever's in my head at the time. It gets embarrassing. I'm off to fix a frozen pizza....

[minks]

Aw Red I wish I could help you there. I live in a city that saw 1 million last year. Yep that is our population. This city has grown from 0 to 1 million in only a little over 100 years.

Even in a city this size one can still feel like you travelling the fast road to nowhere.

I sometimes think we battle with our inner selves too much and feel like this >:-5 when we get to thinking we are just going to be dust one day.

Keep your mind active hunny, be it with volunteering, working, or travel. If you can't get away on a serious sabbatical, go do some volunteer work, or go back to school and take up something you love, change jobs, anything that offers up a healthy change.

One of the best things I did and was fortunate to be able to do so was take my trip to England. It renewed my soul at a time where I needed that boost.

[zinkyusa]

No matter wher you go, there you are.

That's my main problem, I have to take myself with me.:-2

[minks]

zinkyusa;620659 wrote: No matter wher you go, there you are.

That's my main problem, I have to take myself with me.:-2


that top quote is from the show "Buckaroo Bonzai" with John Lithgow, Bob Marley, Harold Ramis and a few other now famous folks.

[Tater Tazz]

You can come stay with me red.