“I can’t keep doing this. This life is harsh. My youth was different.”
Water is scarce. There isn’t enough for all of us on the farm. It is dry. It is fierce. It floods whenever it rains. If only we could collect it all. If only we could direct it all. It is too much for us.
This is no place for us.
We should go away. We should go far where water is plentiful and everything is green. Where the nights don’t get so cold. Where the days are more evened out. Where it rains, but hopefully not snows. Where there are things to do, to see.
I don’t want to be in pain. I want to live. I want to stop working because I have to, and only want to work if I want to. I deserve that now. It is time. It has been too long. Too much pain.
Too tired.
I can’t keep doing this. This life is harsh. My youth was different. We’d jump. We’d hitch a ride. We’d go as far as we could until there was nowhere else to go, then turn right back around again and start over. It was fun. Now it is exhausting.
This is no life for anyone. No life for one just beginning. No life for one near the end. The heat. The fires. The flies. No water.
Snakes.
(Did I mention no water?)
We could grow here. We’d have to protect it. And the water… How could we do that?
My joints ache. My head hurts. Always, almost always. A headache. The medicine is so expensive. If I’m lucky, I get samples… How is it like this? Why is it like this? Everyone is so crazy now…
And this pandemic…
Stir-crazy. We’re all stir-crazy. We’re all crazy.
Where do you go? Where is safe? Every one is sick. Every one is sick of this.
It is no place to be. There’s no where to go.
I’m staying on the farm.
Maybe…
Maybe not.
My life is already here.
A difficult life.
A painful life.
But it is life.