With two days left before school starts, I’m inclined to run away with my kids to an island where we can be left to wonder, without the world shoving its will down our throats. But we won’t. Instead, we’ll fall into line with everyone else and suffer the bullshit. And smile. And pretend to be good little soldiers as we try to live up to society’s expectations of what that means.
It’s hard to raise children and tell them to dream, and then put a barbed wire fence around them. And it must be devastating for them to outgrow their fence, only to see the ones around us. Their heroes. Childhood is fleeting. I know. I can’t let it go. And I still have never fully given in to this game even though I have to wear the right clothes, pour unsustainable fuel into my car, and take tests to prove I’m worthy of earning money.
I sometimes hate that so much of our lives are predetermined by society’s predispositions on how we should be, act and think.
We go to school. We get a job. We vote. We produce offspring. We die. Yes, there’s beauty, laughter and miracle epiphanies sprinkled in – but those are contained like lightning bugs in a pickle jar. Only, I’m on the underside of the jar’s lid waiting for the opportunity to escape – careful to avoid being crushed by a panicked God rushing to screw the top back on after He spots me there.
***
James
Aug 23, 2011
Your last paragraph is one of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever read on a blog. Well said, Jim. Save me a place under the lid.
Janet Vanderhoof
Aug 23, 2011
That’s not God. It’s the false self.
Nichole
Aug 24, 2011
I agree with James, the last paragraph paints a vivid picture and evokes a different emotion in each line. By the way, “lightning bugs in a pickle jar” would make a great book title. justsayin’
Lauren
Jun 8, 2012
My dad was a marine in WWII and I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. He’s been gone now almost 10 years. Anyway, what that has to do with this posting is that he later majored in journalism – went to college on the GI Bill – and he once told me he was going to write a book when he retired. The title was going to be “Lightning Bug in a Pickle Jar”. He never wrote it, but I sometimes wonder what it was going to be about. He wanted to be an actor, but ended up working for 30 plus years at an insurance company. Maybe he felt like a trapped lightning bug. I don’t know… I wish he wrote the story. Would have been a good one! Funny what you find when you google something that’s stuck in your head! 🙂