I have never done one crazy thing in my whole life. 

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And I think it’s driving me crazy. 

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One of the ways that I make sense of this mundane existence is by making sure that I’m not the only one living a Wonder Bread life. My old friend Sarah was the only other person I ever found who also was so afraid that she, too, was living an ordinary life. That's kind of what bound us together in the first place. Sarah always tried to quantify her life, too—from our photography together, to the strange online dictionary she was obsessed with, full of made-up words to quantify unquantifiable feelings. Despite one concise word being the least crazy thing ever, it still makes me feel understood somehow.

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But that understanding . . . it had its limits, and it only went so far. Until it gave out under the weight of itself, as all things do.

 

 

Hendrix doesn’t acknowledge me on his way out.  Sometimes I feel this weird longing towards other people, like I want to peel back their skulls and get to know them. Like, really know them. I feel that way with Hendrix. I don’t know why, but I just do. 

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I blast the radio and give Billings’ Best Yogurt the finger on my way out of the parking lot. It’s things like this that make me feel like I’m doing something significant without actually having to suffer any consequences. 

Ironically, Billings’ Best Yogurt isn’t actually in Billings, Montana. We work at an offshoot in the suburbs, which in Montana language is ‘anywhere within one hundred miles of the largest city.’ We have one Walmart, one post office, one pair of railroad tracks that runs on the south side of town. Most of the area is poor and rural, but my family lives in one of the few neighborhoods that resemble the white-picket-fence archetype—only because Mom’s on the county board of directors.

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When I get home, I open the door to a dark house. “Mom? Dad?” The refrigerator hums in the background. “Max?”

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Nothing. I tiptoe through the kitchen, setting my keys on the rung. Down the hall, warm lamplight cuts through from Dad’s office.

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I push the door open. “Hey, I’m home.”

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“Oh, hi honey,” he says from his laptop, the cold, computer light clashing against his face.

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“What’d you guys have for dinner?” I ask. 

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“Um, pot roast, I think.”  I wait for him to look up, to give me a hug, to tell me that there’s a plate for me in the refrigerator. But it’s obvious that he’s working. Which is strange, because it’s 11:30pm on a Wednesday night, and we live a comfortable enough life where he doesn’t have to work all the time. But he does anyway. I wish I could say that Mom’s any different.

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I think they work so much because they’re afraid of not doing anything. They’re afraid of the quiet, of the stillness. They think that rest equals idleness. That nothing great ever comes out of leisure time. That their status somehow makes them different from the people in this poor, ‘red’ state. That they are strangers here, when they too have been grown from the same hick dirt everyone else has. 

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I back out of his den. “Goodnight, Dad,” I say, shutting the door behind me. 

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“Goodnight, Michelle.”

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I stop, stiffening in the dark hallway. The name stings because of all the things it means, and all the things it doesn’t. It reminds me of being young and loved. And it reminds me of the ache in my chest—the one that’s still burning and raw. Sometimes I feel like a stranger in my own house.

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I keep walking. 

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The refrigerator light casts lonely shadows into the kitchen as I eat something.  

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The floor rumbles beneath me, and I startle, the sound pulling me out of somewhere inside the labyrinth of my brain. I sneak downstairs to find my brother, Max, plugged in to his video game console.

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“Hey,” I say. No response. Something explodes on the screen, and the blast comes out of the speakers, shaking the drywall. “Hey!” I shout. If Max has got his headset on, then why the hell does he need the TV at full volume?

I reach over and crank it down. “Hey!” I shout again. “Where’s Mom?”

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Max sneers, revealing his green and blue braces as he dodges around me. “Get outta the way! I can’t see shit!”

 “C’mon, Max! Talk to me, dude. Your valiant sister has returned with your favorite frozen yogurt!” It’s true. When I work late on weeknights, I try and bring Max home one of his favorite flavors. He likes Butterfingers too. 

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He rolls his eyes and dodges around me to try and see what’s exploding on screen this time. Hardening, I peel away from the screen. I duck behind Max, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Hey, tell me about your day. How are you and Hayley doing? How’d that history test go?”

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He cringes, trying to break free. “Sure. Now leave me alone, I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”

“Did you do your homework? I might be able to help you since Dad’s busy. Or we could go outside. It’s not too cold out anymore, and the fireflies are out this time of year. You remember how we used to—”

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“C’mon, get off me!” He drops the controller just long enough to peel my arms away. 

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“Fine.” I sit back, behind Max, peering at the back of his head of warm brown hair. Wishing I could peel it back and see what’s inside. 

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I fall into the beanbag next to him. “Hey, give me a controller. I’ll play with you for a while before bed.”

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“Hell no. You don’t know how to play, and I’m not about to teach you.”

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I study his profile, the acne and stubble that buds on his cheeks. “C’mon,” I plead. “After this round?”

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“No,” Max snaps. “Just leave me alone. God, you’re so annoying.”

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This cuts deeper than it should. I breathe for a moment. Standing, I say, “It’s almost midnight. You should be getting ready for bed. We’ve got school tomorrow.”

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“Shut up. You’re not Mom.”

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“Yeah, and where is Mom, then?” I dig my eyes into his profile, but he hasn’t even looked at me once. Without thinking, I reach behind the TV, grab a handful of cords, and yank them out. 

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“What the hell! I just lost all of my progress, Michelle!” Max springs up from his bean bag, throwing down the controller and headset. 

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I can put up with Dad calling me Michelle, but Max knows better. “It’s Arden, you asshole! And if you’d listen to me, maybe then I wouldn’t have to literally unplug you from the TV!” I say, crossing my arms. 

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“God, you’re so stupid! You can’t just do that!” Max shouts. 

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“Do you see Mom or Dad? No? Then I’m the oldest and you have to listen to me.” I’m shaking with anger.

 

“No, I don’t.”

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“Yes, you do!” I shout. My ribcage is electrocuting my lungs. I can’t stop it, I can’t stop any of it.  “Go upstairs and go to bed! Can’t you just listen for once and not be so selfish and defiant and stupid?!”

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For a moment, we just glare at each other, heaving. Max sneers at me, in all of his thirteen-year-old glory. “Fuck off.”

Sighing, I eject the video game disk and close my eyes. Max storms upstairs, but not before he flashes me the finger. Already, poisonous guilt drowns out my previous anger.

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It takes all I have in me not to snap that fucking disk right between my fingers. My heart crowds out my lungs and stomach, swelling and throbbing in my chest. Listening to him storm upstairs, I fall back onto the bean bag, just plain tired. The noise echoes throughout the empty house, and slowly fades away. What the hell am I doing?

Sighing, I take out my phone, texting my friend Alex and asking if she’s awake. I stare at the screen for a while hoping—but also knowing—that the bubbles indicating that she’s typing won’t appear. 

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I need to get out. Sometimes I wonder how much gas I waste on these impulse drives, where I delude myself into thinking I’m running from my life. I’m actually running from myself, which isn’t really something you can run from, but I try to anyway. 

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Grabbing my digital camera, I get back into my red 2003 Oldsmobile Alero and leave. It’s damn nearly my most prized possession, my ticket to freedom.  I blast some rock over the speakers to try and drown out whatever awful thing is rising up to my throat. The speed feels good, like it’s stringing me along on a wild chase across the sea and through every valley and mountain. The speed fills my bones with something, which is better than nothing.

Once I make it out of town, I drive slow along the winding country roads. Not just so I don’t get picked up by the cops, but just so I can soak in the glowing darkness. So I can make every second last just a bit longer. So I can take one more moment trying to find myself out there, between the solitude and the empty streets and the melancholy music. Everything else moves just a bit slower when the stars are out.

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I’ll sit in these empty intersections late at night, staring into the darkness, letting the music flood the car. Hoping the street lights can worm their way into the uninvited hollow feeling that drills holes in my heart. I’ll sit there and soak in the textures, the sounds, the sights, and how it all feels. As if being fully present in the moment somehow gives it meaning.

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I let the pain in, fully, at these times, because I wouldn’t dare let it in anywhere else. Everything’s silent here in a liminal space. When I’m in my car, I don’t have to be anybody. I’m not a daughter or a sister. I’m not a student or an employee. I’m just me, and all of the in-between.

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It’s always disappointing when the beams of another car’s headlights appear in my rearview mirror, because it means I must move on. The moment is over. 

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By repeating the intersection process, I end up in the middle of nowhere. I slam my car into park and get out, walking onto the shoulder of the road that leads into blankets of dark fields. 

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I take out my DSLR and adjust the settings accordingly for long-exposure photography. Setting up the tripod, I try to get some good pictures of the moon or even the faraway city lights. But everything comes out boring or wrong somehow. Not good enough. 

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I throw my tripod back into the trunk, staring at the grainy orbs of light that are supposed to be home. Instead of getting angry at myself, at the camera for not doing what I wanted, I’m just disappointed.

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I look up. Our tiny, suburban town in Montana shines as pockets of light between mountains and plains. My whole world. Sometimes I come up here when everything feels like it’s getting too big for me to comprehend. When I look down and see the mountains enveloping a cluster of streetlamps and glowing houses, I don’t feel so out of control anymore. It gives me perspective, I guess. 

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I close my eyes, winking out the stars and galaxies and streetlights. Part of me wishes Max could be here, that he could see what I see, feel what I feel. 

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Desire twists inside me, and I feel my soul in my gut. She’s tired and weary and fed-up. Fire consumes and grows and fills my lungs with smoke until all that I breathe is this all-consuming, strange desire. 

 

I’m faced with two snapshots. One of what my life actually is: absent parents, disconnected brother, dead-end job in a dead-end town. And another of what I want it to be: something significant, something real, something full of love and fulfillment and a kaleidoscope of all the strange and beautiful things that life can be.

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The two feel so far apart—one so startling and disappointingly real, and the other polarizing and just out of reach. The thing is: I know where I want to go; if only someone thought of giving me a roadmap. Out here, under the stars, I try to center myself, but it feels like I’m missing a few parts.

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By defining and categorizing my obscure sorrows, this makes them not so obscure anymore. My heart wants to run, but my muscles turn and drive me home. I don’t want to be the person I am anymore, but I don’t know who I want to be. Cognitive dissonance.

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This might be one of the last times I make the long, lonely drive home. Because one of these days, I’m just going to leave and never come back.

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