Some Hollyhocks

"One could deer hunt all night out here." Tyler and I were consumed by the full moon's rays, seeing for over a mile across the dim white landscape, "if it was legal" he added. Still. Life hushed, yet alive. Only a traveling light from east to west a couple miles away on County Road 10.

I have still not settled that this is my home indefinitely. I have not let myself believe that I am staying here, despite looking at farmsteads and apartments to rent in the Rothsay and Fergus Falls area. My dreams seem to bubble into something more than just having a job and paying off school loans these days. I am learning to live for more than just getting through the week and having enough to scrape by, but saving for something like a house or a car or a horse.

My job takes much of my time. I seem to see friends and Tyler less and less with my schedule. I work long days with large stresses, yet my time here is not wasted, making two people's lives a little happier with my service and sacrifice. Jane is bipolar, Chuck has cerebral palsy, both things I have never dealt with, both which have their own challenges when caring for an individual that suffers from such disorders.

I have been absent from school for over six months. Not only have my school loan bills arrived, but I am starting to feel my writing skills and intelligence slipping. No challenges to learn here in that way. No brain-aching conversations or piercing into my deepest thoughts and emotions for writing. I am just me. Eating, working, sleeping, watching a few minutes of GAC and then to work again.

As I was sitting in Tyler's Beretta last night, I was amazed at the absoluteness. The moon so bright, headlights weren't needed, only the imagination and every 5 senses alive. And for one minute, just one, I wanted to write again. I wanted to read again. I wanted to get my pen out and somehow capture this moment to the billions of people that have never inhaled a moment like this and the millions that probably never will.

I have had to ask myself some hard questions while I have been here. Where am I going? Who will stick by me for life? What path will I carve? Will I go back to school, or am I content to work behind the scenes in a very non-assuming position in a small, rural town?

The worries and stresses I had in Minneapolis seem so trivial and shallow at this point, and now, instead of worrying about stuff and money, I am thinking of life, of having a home, a place to call my own, of having a husband and some kids, and maybe having a garden full of hollyhocks.