Skip to main content

Scout on Trying/Mud

 The mud was the first sign. It was freezing outside, and I couldn’t find my gloves, so I tried to push the ice away from my car with my bare hands. They were numb, but it felt good. I was told my car would have trouble because of the ice, but it was the mud that kept swallowing it back into the ditch. I think that sums up maturing pretty well because what people tell you will be a problem almost never is. The ‘virtues’ of life come in as Trojan horses, and I naively let them in with an open heart and a blank mind. My mind was blank then, too, when I was pressing the gas as hard as I could, and instead of moving, I was treated with the fine smell of gas and burnt rubber. They told me to get rid of the mud so I could get out, but I couldn’t get rid of the mud unless the car got out. I was met with the same paradox that my therapist had presented me with: to become happy, you must practice the things you love, but I could only practice the things I loved once I was happy.

Eventually, the mud settled into dirt, and I was free to go nowhere I wanted to be again. It’s ironic to think about how little people care for the things they work so hard for. I had tried for hours to get out, only to realize that I didn’t have anywhere to be. Sometimes, I think I don’t even have anything to say. I’m the car, fighting to be released from a problem no one predicted, only to want to sit motionless where I started. And I’m not as stuck as I could be, not nearly as stuck as the cars frozen into the ditch. But the thought of being trapped again holds me hostage, holds me down enough to make me park until the sun rises and the mud dries. I hate being asked what I’m afraid of; I hate being asked anything at all. I hate overcoming everything for nothing, and I hate losing to the mud once I have beaten the ice.

I bought boots specifically for the days I thought it would snow, but I forgot to wear them when it did. On the day that I remembered to, I slipped anyway. I can’t explain to anybody why I haven’t been able to write, drive, or do anything that I’m not forced to do. All I can tell them is I bought useless boots and a car just to stay exactly where I am.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scout on Maturity/Broken Glass

  On the other side of the glass, I see the perfect version of myself. She walks with a skip in her step, and nothing about herself keeps her up at night or down in the morning. Everyone she knows loves her, and she finds a way to love them back. She has everything, she is everything, and her confidence is unwavering. The days behind the glass are long because they’re spent clawing at myself until I bleed. Why can’t you feel like them, love them like them, be loved like them? I hate when my reflection is too clear, when those eyes look as if they’ve rejected the idea of happiness. The glass breaks. At the shift of my image, I get angry with myself. You, in all your light and life and experience, sit here digging holes through yourself because you don’t fit a perfect mold? You sit here hating the color of your skin, your eyes, your hair, your body, your face, when you have everything to be grateful for? The wall shatters onto me, destroying the person that I ruthlessly despised, a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scout on Cycles/Without Fail

      And so I return, back to the black and white letters and the soft clacking of the keyboard. I return after the rejection of my fragility, knowing now that the escape is temporary. How can I find meaning in this obscure trouble? How can I continue to be angry at the fleeting wind? When all is said in done, I sit in crowded rooms alone and listen to phones ring without an answer. I look around only to count how many people have run from me, mistreated me, and spit on my name. Shallow walls swallow me in whenever I walk, cloudy air consumes my sentences whenever I speak. That pit in my stomach doesn’t leave because it is my soul; broken, abused, self-pitying, and pathetic, but still my soul. It and I long for the day that it will be free to find its purpose. Today, I watched the breeze shuffle through the leaves, and I remembered the days when I would stare up at it and wonder if it was all the same. Every road had trees almost exactly alike, which I learned from...
1 comment
Read more

Scout on Learning/The Sun

  I was looking for the sun. It was hot out, but I couldn't tell why. Yes, it was bright, but the sun was nowhere to be found. I looked in trees, in birds, and finally, I looked into you. You shone brighter than any other living creature and any crystal. You glittered brighter than gold. I was happy, I knew I was, at least for a little bit. Now, though, I can’t seem to ignore the darkness that creeps in at noon. The cold that seems to disprove your efficiency and the unreliability that refutes your existence. How can the sun disappear when I need its presence the most? How can the sun turn cold?   Tonight, I waited for you to leave so that I could ask the moon. Only, it was gone too because it depended on you. And my orbit shifted, and my planets got lost, but you still brightened up the next morning. This time, though, I doubted depending on you. I wondered why you had hidden from me when I needed you. I wondered why you provided heat and light without giving guidance. I do...
Post a Comment
Read more