some thoughts on the way i feel

Do you know when you just have that feeling that you don't belong here? The feeling that something's just not right. The feeling that the air doesn't breath right. The feeling that there's something more for you out there?

I have that feeling all the time. I have the strongest feeling that I don't belong in Utah. I've just never felt the vibe. I have a yearning for a place that matches my personality. I don't know how to explain it.

Maybe I can explain it this way: I have a different kind of feeling about Andy and I. The feeling that we're a perfect fit. It's just right and I feel it in my soul. I don't have that feeling about Utah and never have. It doesn't matter if its Park City, St. George, SLC, or Ogden. Utah and I are not a perfect fit, or a fit at all for that matter. I constantly feel like an outsider looking in. A visitor just waiting for my train out. There's just something about It and Me-together- that just isn't.......right.

Does that make me ungrateful? or snobbish? If it does, I'm sorry. I can't help the way I feel inside. I've felt this way since I was a teenager. When you're a teenager you start to become aware of your surroundings. I did and it just didn't feel right. I grew up in a small town on the outside of a slightly bigger town. A lot of the kids that lived in that small town have fond memories of it. Their hometown. Can I just be honest and say I've never thought twice about my hometown. I'm not connected to it or endeared by it. It never felt like me.

I want to experience something different. I've always wanted that. Always. For as long as I can remember I've been studying maps and wishing for something different. Different culture. Different climate. Different geography. Different mentality. I have a great interest in people- sociology. I want to experience a different type of sociology.

I just want to experience it for one period of my lifetime. That's all I'm asking. If Utah ends up being the final resting point, I think I could live with that. But living with that would be impossible for me if I never got to experience difference for awhile, if that makes any sense.

My mother used to say that if I moved somewhere else, I would find out real quick that everywhere is just the same. I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that. Some people would say 'why would you want to live far away from your family?' But that's not it. That's not it at all. There's just some force inside me that is dying for me to see something different for awhile.

I know there's a place out there somewhere that is a perfect fit for me. A place that will feel like home. A place that will feel like Andy's arms around me. A place that will make me smile every day when I wake up and look out the window. A place that will excite and inspire me rather than depress and suppress me.

I believe it's out there. Getting to it? Well, that's another story. Cause it's not just about me anymore. It's about us. And I'm not quite sure the other half of 'Us' feels the way I do about this subject. I think the other half of 'Us' is content. It scares me that I'm not content because I don't want to take away someone else's contentedness and I don't want to give up on mine. Because eventually unrest turns into bitterness and resentment.

When I say I want to go to school out of state, it's not because I'm against online classes. It's mostly because I'm afraid that will be my only opportunity-my last chance-to get out. It's like my ticket and I'm holding on to it for dear life.

These feelings were one of the major reasons why I resisted, so fiercely, falling for someone again. I just knew that I would fall for someone who was settled here in Utah. Someone with a house and a career and a life built up in Utah. Someone with no room in their life and no time for my need to experience something outside of Utah.

But I did fall for someone. I fell for the most unselfish human being in the world, who supports my desire to experience the outside. But when it comes right down to it, I could never ask him to just pick up his life and start over. I couldn't live with my selfish self if I did that.

I feel guilty feeling like this and I try to ignore it. I think things like, "Ogden's a decent place...you'd have hiking trails. SLC's okay, there's a little bit of culture and the library. You like that bookshop in Park City, right? You'd be happy there." It's like I'm forcing myself to settle because I feel like a selfish brat wanting to 'get out.'

I keep thinking that maybe these feelings will pass and that good old Utah will start to feel a little more like 'the place.' Maybe it will someday. But I'm pretty sure that for that to happen, I'd need to first get a taste of the outside.

That's why I say that all I need is a taste. Because I think once I got that taste, I'd be perfectly content living in Ogden or SLC or Logan. I really don't want to be far away from family.

But I don't want to never experience or see anything different. That feels like such a waste of life to me.

Anyway, just had to get that out cause it pretty much is constantly on my mind.