I think all the time about the bank of windows on the back of our farmhouse that I grew up in. They were two stories tall and spanned the whole back wall of the living room. Fantastic for letting light in and watching lightning storms roll across the back pasture they were not, in fact, fantastic for the birds.

Birds would constantly fly into the windows. You could hear their little bodies pop against the glass, sometimes even if you were in a different room. Sometimes you would see it, their tiny frames swooping in innocently at a high rate of speed, doing what birds do until they were stopped dead in their tracks by the glass. Many times the force was too great and their necks would be broken and they would be dead. Other times they just looked dead. I would always go outside, to check on them, dread filling my chest. The ones who didn’t die instantly would be laying there motionless. They looked dead, you couldn’t be sure, but they were just stunned and in a suspended state of shock. Sometimes it would be hours, the light would start to fade and dusk would sink in. Yet they would muster up the strength and fly away. Incredible, really.

Of course during the time they were stunned they were vulnerable: vulnerable to predators. Could there ever be a lesson in this and nature eventually evolve to where they can identify invisible structures erected thousands of years after they were able to always fly so freely? Worlds collide…

I can’t tell you how many times since I graduated high school and moved out of that farmhouse that I’ve identified with those birds. So sure of things in life, moving freely, then bam, an invisible thing moves into view and I’m thrown off my balance. It guts you. You question your existence and purpose especially after it happens over and over again.

My life the entire 20 years since I’ve been a legal adult and moved out of the house has been like this. The idea is that you figure this stuff out faster so you can grow your roots as an adult faster, right? The problem is the literal time you lose recovering from the impacts. I especially struggle with this because I’m different. It has taken me much longer to figure this planet out so that I can reconcile who I am against what is at play. So many things I’ve committed to and believed in has not been what it appeared to be.

I’ve been in Austin for almost 11 1/2 years. If you study numerology you know the significance of the upcoming number 12. I was so sure when I moved here that this was going to be my town: the place where I found my long term mate, had a kid or maybe be a role model for a step kid, a career, schools for the children, causes I could grow, things of substance that grow out of the nucleus that you start with. In other words, your people who get you and vice versa.

I don’t have that. It’s not that I haven’t tried. I’ve picked up a lot of experiences, “fun”, but there’s also been a lot of judgment and nastiness from others that has left me sad and depleted and in some cases confused. I’m real, I care a lot and I do things sincerely it just has never come together and I’m not going to fight this anymore. I’m tired of carrying the load. I’m tired of the yang energy of judgement and entitlement and general nastiness. I don’t know where my clan is, I don’t know if my future is to entail these things of roots and substance but I’m not going to limit myself anymore. I’m giving up and moving forward, whatever that may end up looking like.

I deserve better.