Skip to main content

Cow Pasture Dreaming

I woke up this morning three hours before my alarm clock was supposed to go off. I did the typical: check the time, scowl, roll over, and tried to go back to sleep. Repeated this little ditty two more times and finally realized it didn't matter. My brain wouldn't let me sleep any longer despite the fact I fell asleep around 2:30 in the morning.

You know what I was thinking about? What was wreaking havoc on my sleep?

Cow pastures. Plain and simple. Rolling hills in Alabama filled with beautiful brown cows noshing on freshly dew'd grass.

There was this beautiful pasture that I drove by everyday to high school. Jones Farm. Whenever the sun would rise over those hills, they would honestly sing. I'm talking like the choir of Who's singing around the Christmas tree sounds just radiating from the vales. I'm honestly surprised that I never got in a car wreck on my way to school because I would just stare at that magnificent scene as I drove by. Hopefully that farm will be there for a while and won't be turned into some gross shopping mall that will be out of style in 20 years; what a shame to the people of the Jones Valley area.

Anyways, here I am in bed just thinking about how nice it would be to drive past a pasture right now. Have the window rolled down a bit, able to smell the frost melting in the sunlight...

And there it is. Blare of a car horn. Sound of the city streets. I'm a very long way from even the notion of a freshly dew'd plot of land reserved for grazing cattle.

That's when the questions started hitting me at rapid speed.

Why in America do we feel that we have to always "rise to the top" or relentlessly "follow our dreams." I am not at all complaining that we have the opportunity to do so, however why are we so scared of being content? Why do we seem to dis people for settling down for a simpler life? Are we scared of actually being truly okay with life?

My generation is the first generation since the Great Depression that will make less money (on average) than our parents. What a sullen fact; however a great one, too. My generation is the waiters, the retail employees, the barista's at Starbucks, the assistants, the office secretaries, the people that work minimum wage jobs until they are promoted to manager. Many of my cohorts might think this blatantly sucks, and yes, it kind of does. Not to mention, there will be a handful of people that do "rise to the top" and have comfy jobs as CEOs, Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, etc, but for the majority of us with bachelor's degrees from liberal arts colleges, we have to either get creative or settle in and stop complaining.

As much as I would like to sit here and feel sorry for myself, because I miss the sweet air of Alabama and the beautiful sparking meadows, I just can't afford it. I can't lie, it's so hard. I miss the simplicity, and hell who knows, maybe by the summer I'll be back down there frolicking around on those damn rolling hills. But for now it is the concrete jungle. I need to find the simplicity in a place like this, because it's here, it's just different...but it has to be here. Life is too short to feel misplaced. Life is too short to feel like a slave to society!

So anyways, this morning I toast my cup of coffee to the hard working people everywhere, especially in NYC...how they grew up without cow pastures I will never understand.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Glass of Water Can Only Go So Far

Shall I compare thee to a cup of water? At the start of the day you have a full glass. You get ready for your day, whether you are an early or late riser, a beauty queen or an "el natrural", a showered last night or showers in the morning, makes eggs and bacon or has a poptart on the go. This little ritual can ultimately alter your whole day. Depending on how your morning goes, you use a sip of water before you even get out the door, a couple sips if your didn't sleep well, and a gulp if you're helping a little one or two. Now everyday doesn't have the same set of glasses. Say on Fridays you get to work from home. That means you never have to give up that sip of H2O to look presentable for the boss. Heck some people, like my older sister, use about a drop of water on the whole getting ready process, which is pretty smart in the scheme of things. I'm not going to sit here and remind you (or myself) of a begrudging morning tasks and the fun that comes along. The...
Post a Comment
Read more

No longer an ant.

This is what happens when you move back to Alabama from New York City. The first week you feel like your missing something. Every time your phone goes off you check it immediately, even if it's the 5am email from your Google Calendar telling you that you have "no events scheduled for the day." In the realization that you truly have no obligations in the next 24 hours, you will then roll over and sleep for about 4 more hours. You'll then wake up at 9am and lay in your bed checking Facebook, Twitter, updates from the free New York Times app, reply to the game of Words With Friends, and after an hour of sitting in bed, you finally decide that your iPhone can no longer hold your attention. This is when you mosey out of your room and start your day of absolute nothingness. Now this nothingness isn't a bad thing, it's almost like rehab. It's slowly reminding you that life isn't about deadlines, being on top of every current event, it's not about beat...
Post a Comment
Read more