It hurts



It hurts to be back in Atlanta. It does. I've been discontent on and off since I moved back from Oregon in 2001. I keep trying to plot my escape, but the pull of unfinished business has kept me in town much longer than I anticipated.



Now I have only one more bit of business to wrap up: my undergrad degree. Once that is safely in my hands come December 2007, I'm 98% certain I'm out of the ATL. 2008 is the year, baby. It's time. Travelling this month really brought that into focus for me. I'm going to drive myself crazy if I stay here. For serious. This whole damn city is mad, and being here makes me mad. And I can't hardly write here. For real. I've always written better elsewhere, like when I'm in the mountains or when I travel or when I was in that town I hated so much (Carrollton) or when I lived in Portland. It's kind of funny, because so much of what I write screams, "ATLANTA!" but I can't write about my muse city when I'm here. Muses are better with some distance.



I'm so torn, because part of me wants to be completely fabulous and high-rolling and playing with the big boys in, say, Washington, D.C. come graduation, and a whole 'nother part of me wants to go disappear completely off the map. I've always felt like this, though. I always seem to want two completely opposed ideals at exactly the same time. I think it has everything to do with being a Tauremini, and an only child who grew up in a very bohemian, very weird household and had a really volatile childhood. Instability and pressure are familiar; they are comfortable. But I also really crave stability and normal things...all the things I never really had. Ever.



So maybe I need to find some sort of compromise...something partially normal and partially eccentric. And maybe I need to stop being so hard on myself and my past mistakes and trying to make up for lost time.



(This ended up way more confessional than I was planning.)

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