redneck fever

"I'll always be unhappy
one way or the other
I'll always be unhappy
if I don't sing..."
-Anthony Green, If I Don't Sing

I often wish I could be a good ol' country boy like so many of my male peers.

I wish I had a bushy goatee and drove a giant pickup truck that could bulldoze a small house.  I wish I liked to drink and fish and hunt and keep a wad of tobacco in my cheek at all times.  I wish I had a closet full of camouflage and didn't have to worry about my complexion or the complexities of social interaction.

I wish I worked offshore on an oil rig and was married to a nurse and we had a baby boy that we bundled up in John Deere apparel or a little girl that we bundled up in pink John Deere apparel.  I wish I could be a good Republican Christian and sit in church on Wednesdays and Sundays and believe in everything the preacher yelled through gritted teeth and bulging forehead veins.

I wish I could enjoy Sunday football and have a few beers with my buddies from high school.  I wish I had buddies from high school.  I wish I could cut the grass in my cowboy boots and own a big dog that rode in the back of my truck.  I wish I could be tough, be burly, have a farmer's tan and live an uncluttered life.

It seems simple.  They have simple jobs with simple spouses and take orders from a simple God.  They seem satisfied.  I just wonder if they actually are.  Do they ever wonder about making a difference in the world?  Do they believe they have the talent and the ability to make a change, to create art and inspire others?  Do they ever wonder what's outside their small town bubble?

Maybe they do.  But I don't see that.  I don't hear anyone wanting to break out of Alabama and transform people.  But that's not to say that they don't.  They might help out in smaller ways and there is nothing at all wrong with that.  I just want to make a bigger difference, reach a wider audience.  I just can't seem to do that here.  Everyone else who wanted to escape pretty much has.  As for me, I'm in a weird place, in every sense of the word. 

Note: I'm not diminishing these people or their choice of lifestyle or career.  I am not above them in any way.  I just see them taking the easy route and compromising their dreams and goals for security.  Of course, they're better off than I am because they do have that security and I followed my dreams and crashed and I'm still burning.  And really, what's wrong with taking the easy route?  I just know it's not for me and I often wonder why I was plopped in the middle of nowhere with no outlet, no inspiration and no way out.

I thought I'd contract some country if I put some chewing tobacco in my back pocket or watched NASCAR and camouflage clad men shooting deer on television.  I thought I could tailgate in the Burger King parking lot and go mud riding and I'd fit in and finally feel fulfilled.  But nothing stuck.  It doesn't mean I don't still think about it often.

There are times when I think it would be easier to throw away all of my dreams and choose to be another nurse or construction worker.  It wouldn't be a good fit, however.  I'm too sensitive, too artistic, and definitely not macho enough to fit in with this town and these people.  Every time I am forced to venture out into the city, when I'm in the grocery store surrounded by the elderly talking about church and tomato plants and guys with their Wranglers tucked into rubber boots and women wearing shirts with football teams plastered across their chests, I'm reminded that I don't belong here.  I just don't know how to fix it.  

I also know that I will never change.  There's a burning inside me that flares up when I think of giving in.  In the deepest corners of my heart, I want to create, to share, to help, to touch.  I don't think I'll be satisfied if I couldn't do that.  I'll never be happy under the hood of a car.  I'll never get excited over college football.  I'll never be satisfied with myself as long as I'm trapped here, constantly comparing myself to these country boys and girls, grasping for a connection and realizing there is none to be had.

There are some days when I wish I could catch the fever.  But I look around and see the drones following the same path their parents followed from their parents and when I see them set their children down that same road and never want to venture out past the pavement, I look at myself, very much outside of them, and I'm glad I'm immune.