Illusions and Pre-Mature Homesickness

My dear reader. I speak now, on this day, to the gross injustice of illusions-- illusions which cling to our past, and mist over the future with perverse unattainability.

Don't shrug your disinterested shoulders in mocking dismissal. You know what I mean. Do you remember being five, when the Chucky Cheese commercial flipped on, and children ran screaming by with fist-fulls of tickets, beaming parents, high-fiving? That's an illusion. No parent is happy to be at Chucky Cheese.

In jr. high when everyone else was struggling under illusions (or delusions) of an eighth grade boy who would actually ask you to dance, I was reading eighteenth century literature and struggling with the illusion of bumble bee-free luncheons on a limestone terrace. Both are illusions. Bumble bees love cucumber sandwiches, and eighth grade boys are still oblivious to eighth grade girls.

The first day of school, canoeing, coffee house dates, camping, and shopping trips in NYC... most illusions in life are glorious shells of the real thing. (Okay, the shopping in NYC was pretty spiffy...)

Now I'm in the midst of brand-new illusion bashing.

The single city girl.



Pretty. Confident. Dressed to the nines. She floats cooly along. Well-informed, engaged in her culture. Aloof from the hum-drum, ant-like existence of the working class. She somehow achieves her dreams without breaking an uncomfortable sweat. She's not scared. She's not brash. She gets things done. She loves life. She parties, she shops, she flies home on vacations to kiss babies and exclaim over new home improvements. She has a chic studio, and a roof top that's perfect for parties.

She's an illusion. Probably my next illusion to be shattered...

I'm about to be this girl.

And I'm not confident. I'm not dressed to the nines. I'm incapable of calmly and cooly floating through anything. I'm very ant-like, I will probably toil in a hum-drum way for the rest of my life. I'm terrified of making ends meet. I'm confident I will be anything but successful. I'm terribly scared. I don't have a wonderful job which will let me have a studio, parties, and a shopping habit. I don't have a job. Period. I love my family. I like mid-western happy provincialism, and moderate, shoulder-shrugging politics. I haven't even left yet, and I want to run home.



Life, devoid of the illusion, is scary...