I guess you can really tell what my mindset has been lately,
by the way I've been writing.
I swear I really am an upbeat person usually, but I guess
lately I've been using this blog pretty exclusively for my deep dark dronings.
Recently turning twenty has been kinda difficult. You're a
kid but you're not. You have a lot of responsibilities with limited freedoms
and for some reason I can't shake this constant sadness that seems to follow me
a lot lately. But, I for one, am sick and tired of being sad and choosing to
see the negative in my surroundings. It's very nineteen of me, and frankly I'm
above it (I hope you can feel the irony emanating off of that sentence).
I wanna talk about something happy - but I'm having a hard
time thinking of what..
*To be clear - I sat here on my back porch for about 10 minutes
after finishing the above sentence, trying to figure out what to write about. I
kinda stream of consciousness write. I'm not a big pre-planner
**Actually, just kidding. I got really indecisive and went
to bed instead of finishing this article. Think I'll seek out food before I
make any final decisions.
***I have been sitting on this post for, I believe, almost
four days now - but I finally decided how to finish it
I arguably grew up in Ocala, Fl. I say arguably because I
didn't actually live there after the age of about two, but so much of my life
is there, and so much of my family history lives there.
My parents grew up there, my whole family is there, and some
of my favorite memories stem from nights on my grandma's farm. Bonfires and
laughter, redneck karaoke, and the memories of playing manhunt in the woods
with all of my older cousins.
I remember sitting on the counter of my grandma's bathroom
while she got ready for church and she let me play with her make up. The
moments where I was the only grandkid she would let in the kitchen while she
was cooking dinner, because all I wanted to do was talk to her the whole time.
I remember the pain of having to go to my dad's house there
every other weekend, and how for some reason, Ocala felt like a much different
place when I was with him. I remember the day he showed up at the farm (what I
call my grandma's house) after I hadn't seen him for a few years - I was so
scared because I didn't recognize until he spoke (booze and drugs have a way of
morphing you into a different person).
I wish there was a way for me to be a good enough writer
that you could feel what I feel in these memories. I wish you could taste the
warm coffee, smell the damp air of the early morning on the farm, and feel
strength of the words and life that came out of my grandmothers mouth.
I wish I could walk you through the Orange Park Mall as a
high school kid, while I realized how big my world had gotten and how strange
it was that time in Ocala seemed to stand still.
I wish that I could make you understand how this place
shaped me, and how I am who I am, as a result of what happened there. Even the
ugly stuff makes me happy to think about because I wouldn't be me without it. I
think I would be so much more shallow and spoiled of a person if it wasn't for
my life and what I went through, and the memories I made there.
I'm not sure if this was a happy post, so much as a
sentimental one, but I have to let my mind go where it wants to go. Maybe one
of these days I'll be able to write something funny again. Oh well!
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