I feel sad and angry. I feel poor--a very specific kind of poor... white middle-class poor. Not quite "white trash," but that kind of poor where you have a really nice laptop and health insurance but you wear tattered clothes that don't fit and your family fights about money all the time. Where you can afford to take medication for a "rich people's disease" but you put off buying new shoes until the ones you're wearing break every tenth step. It's not really a lack of money. It's a disjointed, irrational mindset.
I'm listening to "Dance Music" by The Mountain Goats and thinking about that song that starts "If she wants to dance and drink all night, no one's gonna stop her," and the years I spent riding in a big white van, old and beat-up, but still good, with an amazing friend. I should call her.
I'm tired of hearing "We'll talk about it when you get home." We don't communicate any better in person. The only difference is that I'm more intimidated by them in person, and they have the option to physically stop me from doing things. I've never been openly rebellious before. I'm not even trying to do that now, and I don't want to sound like an angsty teenager. But I'm being smothered and there's not even a good reason for it.
I'm not going to bow to the king anymore. I need to get the hell out of this messed up kingdom before I can keep trying to help the queen who is really a servant. I'm no bloody pawn-shaped princess.
