Author: Hattie Zubie

I was raised in Chelsea, Massachusetts and am the youngest of five girls. I started writing when I was 12 years old as an escape from an abusive father. I came out when I was 25 and within a couple years entered into a relationship with a woman I would marry and then divorce. My writing reflects the difficulties I face with my parents, once violent and drug addicted, still emotionally neglectful. I also share openly how difficult it was to be in an unhealthy, unsuccessful marriage. I feel my best when I am outdoors, on a road trip, hiking or mountain biking. I am constantly learning what I want in life and simultaneously yearning for something greater.
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The girl who….

In my last post I mentioned how I had shed some skin while I was traveling, A.K.A. my past. Now I want to shed some light on what I meant. Living in the same place your whole life, while having many advantages, has many disadvantages. Friends I had growing up LOVED the idea of staying put. They wanted to be “townies” like their parents were. To be honest the thought made me throw up in my mouth a little. That was the last thing I wanted. Also the last thing I wanted- to be labeled. I felt like I was walking around with a bunch of labels stuck all over me. Everyone knew too much about me. Everything from my past felt so present.  No matter what changes I made, I was always going to be the girl who…

I was the girl from Chelsea. The girl who lost her belief in God or any higher being for that matter when she lost her grandmother. I was the girl who failed gym because she was too shy to run.

I was the girl who got shoved in the locker room in seventh grade by a beastly eighth grader. She had heard I called her a bitch (I hadn’t). For one, I was the new girl in school and didn’t really know who she was and second, I was the new girl in school and wouldn’t call anyone of that size anything for fear of exactly what was happening. I was saved by an equally massive eighth grader just in the nick of time who I believe was friendly with my sister.

I was the girl they called anorexic.

I was the girl who got shunned and bullied in eigth grade by a group of kids. Led by two girls I once was friends with, I was tormented through the halls, called vicious names and was afraid to leave my classrooms. All because I was liked by a boy. I cried every day until I refused to go to school and my parents had to talk to the principle.

I was the girl they thought was a snob.

I was the girl who finally got taken in by a new group of friends in highschool only to end up losing them after highschool. What made this loss so devastating was that after my terrible experience in middle school I lost a lot of confidence and self esteem. This group of friends gave a lot of that back to me, I felt accepted, liked and important. They gave me a sense of worth that I was lacking. It appeared as though the friendships I built with these three girls would last our whole lives. When I started losing those relationships I realized they weren’t  just taking their friendship away, they took all I got from it with them. I lost friends physically but mentally I lost much more. They signified so much to me and that loss was so traumatic that till this day I struggle with it at times.

I was the girl who cut herself.

I was the girl who went crazy my senior year over a breakup. I flipped out at parties, screamed and cried. I called my ex’s new girlfriend and begged her to leave him unless she truly loved him which I knew she couldn’t possibly. I left all our prom pictures in his mailbox, I sat around the corner from his house crying hysterically in my car. I threw out everything and anything that had to do with him. I sent him the poems I wrote about him. I wrote him letters. Years later I still wrote him letters. Years later I still could not move on. I went to therapy specifically to help me get over it.

These trajedies and losses were hanging over me like a storm cloud, they followed me everywhere. When I wasn’t thinking about them I was dreaming about them. Everywhere I looked I was reminded of them between houses I drove passed and people I bumped into. While in reality those people probably weren’t thinking about it ever, I felt every time they saw me, they were remembering-that’s the sad girl, the depressed girl, the crazy girl. Deep down I knew it was my own perception of myself that had to change. Nevertheless, I couldn’t escape it here. This was where it all happened. This was where those memories lived. Now, I should say that it isn’t as if all these years later I am still walking around with anger built up inside me. I am not holding grudges against an ex from when I was 17 or mean girls in middle school or old friends in highschool. I am not thinking about this daily, weekly or even monthly. I worked hard to be a successful adult who isn’t seeking revenge on a 12 year old brat. But in the rare moments when I am reminded of them there are still small pangs of hurt.  I surprise myself sometimes with the feelings that bubble up after over a decade has passed but then I remind myself I suffered through these events and their aftermaths for well over that.

As a 32 year old I feel a little embarrassed to admit that these things that happened to me so long ago still effect me. I should be able to let them go, they should be old news- silly, insignificant, typical school drama.  Like, grow up already! But it took me years to be able to talk about these events without crying not to mention a ton of therapy. They will always be old scars however shrinking and faded.

Living back here I am reunited with the person who endured those hardships. When I was on the road I felt weightless without the heaviness of those labels. I felt like I finally had a chance to be myself, the me I was without all the clutter of being something I didn’t want to be. I wasn’t the pathetic girl who lost all her friends. Twice. I wasn’t the girl who couldn’t get over her heartbreak for years. I wasn’t someone ‘s old best friend, or an easy target. I wasn’t the underdog or athletically challenged. I wasn’t tragically damaged. I wasn’t the hairdresser or the wanna be writer. On the road I wasn’t depressed, I was happy. I wasn’t crazy, I was calm, I wasn’t timid, I was bold. On the road I could be known for being fearless, adventurous, and brave. I was a mountain biker, a camper, and a hiker. I was a minimalist and free spirited. I was optimistic and funny. I was undaunted, uninhibited, and liberated. That’s who I was. It is who I am.

 

Leaving the hurt behind

Grey skies turned blue
Small skies turned big
Dark skies turned starry
Straight roads began to curve
Highways gained elevation
I got further and further away from you
Mean words taunting
Calling me out
Calling me names
A child in a mean girls world
You didn’t follow me there
Green turned brown
Brown turned red
Sun got stronger
Nights grew quieter
The air was cleaner
You didn’t follow me there
Best friends turned enemies
You made me feel accepted
Then you left me out
I left you back there along with my lack of worth
States grew fewer but larger
Rivers and lakes were clearer
Mountains were taller
I achieved new heights
You didn’t follow me there
First love
Worst love
Heartbreak is too tender a word
Heartbreak does not last eight years
That’s depletion
I didn’t need therapy, I needed saving
Too stubborn to leave me
I left you

You didn’t follow me out there
You wouldn’t have lasted a minute
In the bare bones of solitude and minimalism
You require too much
I was reborn
I left you where you were conceived
And you didn’t know any routes out
You couldn’t read the maps
You needed protection
There wasn’t any of that out there
The wide open scared you
Mountains made you feel small
Uninterrupted skies made you feel insignificant
Made you feel less than
The journey made you feel weak
The journey made me strong
I traveled further and further away from you
I climbed higher and higher away from you
I drove faster and faster away from you
I set my eyes on a new horizon
I found peace away from you
I grew taller and taller away from you
I stood on solid ground away from you
I was fearless away from you
I found myself more and more away from you
I was myself
Away from you

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New poem-New life in my old home state.

I am still sifting through this new life in my old home state. I miss being on the road so much. I miss everything about it. I miss living in the small quarters of my motorhome. I miss opening the door and overlooking the La Sal Mountains in Moab, Flathead Lake in Montana or the waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.  I miss the simplicity of it all. I felt I had shed all that made me who I was and suddenly I was nothing more than  girl in a motorhome. I could have been anyone, from anywhere. Finally, I was not the life I had lived. I was just me.

Living back here I am reminded of the many struggles I have faced and how far I have come. I am constantly reminded with flashbacks of my childhood and of the depression I endured as a teenager that lingered into adulthood. I find I am still battling these monsters as a grown woman even though I have done everything in my power not to be a victim of my circumstances. I expected to write everyday on the road but I was surprised to find it difficult. I was not inspired to write, I was inspired to do.  Now that I am back from my travels I am overflowing with words. I think sometimes being in something can be blinding and it isn’t until you are out of it that you can truly see. I can see now and I am writing it all down.

Here Is one of my latest poems. Hope you like it!

 

Rabbit hole

I had to come back to feel it
Had to retrace my steps
Close my eyes
Arms reaching out in front
Hands spread
Fingers feeling
For something I recognized
Would it be everything
Or nothing
Time away can change a person
Sending her into a galaxy of unknown stars
Circling in beautiful confusion
Swirling around in the brightest darkness
A miraculous discovery
New vision
Is this a new me
Has my heart grown bigger
Or are the beats just getting stronger
The pounding making my chest feel smaller
My whole body in a subtle tremor
I am light as a feather
I am blowing around amongst the telephone wires
My face damp with the mist of cumulus clouds
An overcast of reflection
Old meets new
How do you do      It
You are too big for these shoes
Bulbous knuckles turning white with grip
You cannot hold on to these pieces of you
They are cracking, slowly chipping away
You will fall with them
Keep falling
Rabbit holes
Infinite space
Infinite release
Keep falling
Screaming
No one will hear you
Voice swallowed by depth
Let it out and it is gone
No echo
Keep falling
Where are you going
Will you ever get to the you you are running to
Is she down there
Arms reaching out in front
Hands spread
Fingers feeling
I know this person
I know this smell
It fills me with remembrance
She is a child
She is pretending in a world of ambivalence
She is growing up
She is getting angry
She is looking for words angrier then angry
She cannot find them down the rabbit hole
She is a teenager
She is easing her pain with sharp objects
She is losing her belief in a greater being
She is growing up
She is getting angry
She is looking for words angrier then angry
She cannot find them down the rabbit hole
She is a woman
She is running away from the life that was created
She wants to know who is responsible for this
She wants to know how to fix it
She is growing up
She is showing her age
She is looking for words angrier than angry
She cannot find them down the rabbit hole

 

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A poem: the struggle of being someone new when everyone and everything else has remained the same

Being back in Massachusetts is more of an adjustment than I was expecting. I am not sure what I thought it would be like but I feel as though I am merging different versions of myself. One, who I was before I left. Two, who I became while I was away and lastly, who I am now. The last version is still in formation. Coming back to the place I grew up as a changed person creates so many mixed emotions. Everything has remained the same, but I am different. Figuring out how to work these different aspects of myself into the life I once knew well and the people who are part of it is more complex than I was prepared for. Trying to explain what that feels like has been very difficult for me. Recently my best friend hosted a girls get together, it had been a year and a half since I had seen our friends. On the drive home I found myself reflecting, reminiscing and a little out of sorts. Finally this poem came to me and as I wrote the last line I felt exhilarated, relieved, weightless and liberated.

 

 

Things are not right here
I am broken into different pieces of myself
Blown apart
Each piece landing out of reach of the other

I am a sister, I am a daughter
I am an island

I am a friend, I am a wife
I am a mountain

I am spread thin like ice melting on a pond in spring
I am as tight as the corkscrews of my hair
I am confined by these walls
Not able to break free from the tracks I am setting
I want to go back
I want to be out there with no assumptions
No ties
I want to be out there
I want to go back

Back but not backwards

Who am I here
I am too many different pieces

I am an enemy, I am a confidante
I am floating in space

I am sinking in the ocean
I am a wave

These words do not reflect me
These thoughts are not my own
I have no say, I am mute
I do not relate to this world
This world of need and want
I cannot shake my head in agreement
But I do
I laugh and contribute
Adding to nothing
I am too much when I am here
And not enough of anything

I am depressed and troubled
I am a storm

I am strong and independent
I am a mudslide

I close my eyes and I am floating
Out into the open air
The clouds carry me
I am floating
Out from these power lines of restraint
These chains of ordinary

I am not this confusion

Blurred barrier of skin

It is too thin for this
How many people can I be
I am unrelenting rain
Filling up with unfortunate circumstance
I am a body of impersonation

How can I be so unsure
Surrounded by what is most familiar to me
It is too close
Too close to the origin of what tragedies made me
The aftermath still echoing in the air
Bouncing off the buildings and billboards
Flying like a ping pong ball
Threatening to strike if I stand up too tall
I should duck
Out of the way like a little girl crouching from her father
I should run
Faster than the fear of a belt to my fragile legs
I should scream
Louder then the sound of heartbreak at 17
I should dig
Deeper than the scar of a razor to a wrist
I should hit
Harder than the ground of burying depression
I should stand
Taller than the height of expectation
I should fight
More forcefully than the hands of violation
I should hold on
Tighter than the embrace of scared siblings
I should resist
Like the urge to disappear in the face of torment
I should worry
But worry is what got me here
I should be so worthy
To remember and not relive
But all too often they feel like the very same thing

 

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Finding What Was Not Lost

I am going home. I never thought I would say it much less be happy about it. I am happy. I am even excited. I left Massachusetts thinking I would never come back. People were always saying, “Worst case scenario, you come back.” To which I replied, “Worst case scenario the motor home blows up.” I knew I wasn’t coming back. I left believing I needed to find a place where I belonged, a place I fit in and a place where I was surrounded by my kind of people. I left thinking I would find myself. In this new found place of belonging I would be more confident, more carefree, more open and more honest. It would be the kind of place I had been imagining. First, I would travel around until I stumbled upon it like accidentally bumping into your soulmate, the way it happens in the movies. In my travels I would conquer my fears, relinquish my struggle with change and squash my reliance on consistency.  I would strengthen my marriage because, who could fight in the presence of such natural wonders? Without the weight of everyday responsibilities and stressors, what marriage wouldn’t thrive? I was convinced that the journey would bring us so close that when we settled in this unfamiliar, match made in heaven home, we would be new and improved versions of our former selves. That was the goal. That was the plan. It wasn’t too high of an expectation, was it?

I left on an adventure with my wife in a 31ft motorhome pointed west. I spent an obscene amount of money on hiking clothes and gear that I never once would have considered buying or wearing. The first hike in my new clothes made me feel like a foreigner in a new country. Actually, it was like walking around in a super woman costume yet everyone knew it wasn’t Halloween and I wasn’t a superhero. I thought for sure it was obvious that I was a first time Merrill boot trotting, North Face pants wearing, Camelback carrying kind of girl. I felt ridiculous and giddy.

My fear of heights made me hesitant and nervous, which was in full effect when I approached signs reading, NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THOSE WITH A FEAR OF HIEGHTS.  I was the person they were referring too. That was me! My immediate reaction was to stop and say to myself, ‘see I shouldn’t do this!’  There was literally a sign telling me so. I thought for sure that would be my out. Nevertheless my legs kept pushing forward.

My first taste of exposure left me shaky and slightly light headed. Each hike after that got steeper, scarier and more challenging. Each time, I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. Each time, I was sure it was a terrible idea. Each time, I thought, ‘this hike I am not prepared for.’ Each time, I asked, just how steep is steep? How strenuous is strenuous? How difficult is difficult? Each time, I did it anyway. I stayed close to inside walls, held tight to support chains, looked straight ahead of me, and never looked down or up. I talked to myself constantly. I reminded myself that I was in control of my body (despite the fact that my hands were shaking and my legs were trembling). I was not going to fall unless I let go, walked off, or did something really, really stupid.

I felt comfort in my wife’s fearlessness and in the people around me doing the same thing with confidence.  I didn’t let myself say ‘no,’ or think about it too long before I started moving forward. I just did it. I went for it. I even found myself encouraging other hikers who looked terrified. If I could do it, anyone could. I laughed when someone commented on how calm I seemed. I was scared shitless but I transfered my anxiety into determination. When I made it to the top, the reward for the treturous and tremor producing climb was absolute elation. It was the most powerful, most deserved and most fulfilling deep breath my lungs have ever experienced. And the view wasn’t bad either.

The beautiful scenery of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park and even the peaks of the Canadian Rockies, could not change the fact that I was unhappy, and struggling from a damaged childhood, to which my marriage was reaping the consequences. That’s the tricky thing about problems, they are still there even with a change of scenery. You can drive two thousand miles and the only thing that changes is where you are on the map. You bring all your shit with you. And if you are in my situation you also happen to be cramming it into a 200 square foot box on wheels.  A shitty attitude, hyper sensitivity, and lack of communication and understanding can fill a small space till it is bursting at the seems. It creates a thickness in the air even the mountain air can’t clear. I didn’t necessarily think a road trip would cure the issues in my marriage. I thought they would dwindle down a bit and mellow out because we were mellowed out. Not so much. What we really needed was more along the lines of intense couples therapy, somewhere in the realm of ten thousand dollars, by a bestselling world renowned author and psychologist.  Seriously, we took a detour to Colorado and it seriously cost a shitload. We spent a grueling several days with a guy I both hated and admired for his no bullshit cut throat approach to figuring out what the hell is wrong with you. And he makes it very clear that there is something very wrong with YOU. And YOU are the problem. And your marriage WILL fail if YOU don’t fess up to just how fucked up you really are.

The benefits of those visits took a little while to present themselves. But, ultimately what was made very clear was that there was nothing wrong with our marriage, there was something wrong with each of us. Overtime I realized that I was becoming more considerate, selfless and caring. These are attributes I would have argued I already demonstrated when in reality I was selfish, always wanting, grabbing, taking, deflecting, pullling and pushing. I was in this incredibly well made disguise. A disguise unknown even to myself. It was time to take off the mask. I believe being in the motor home away from everyone we knew helped too. In the moment it felt like an impossible situation, but it forced us to confront our problems head on in present time. We had no out. In such a small space there is no place to hide, no rugs to shove our problems under and no closet to stuff the skeletons into.

The ironic thing about leaving in search of something better is that you never find it, and that is because you are looking in the wrong spot. You think you are going to suddenly stumble upon this “thing,” like a tree root lifted up from the ground you don’t notice until you are almost head over heals. Everything you “find” from your self discovery adventure has been inside of you all along. You realize that the things you thought you were looking for are not things at all. They are revelations. These revelations reveal themselves as a better understanding of what it means to give things up, to start over, to be afraid and go for it anyway, and to not only get out of your comfort zone, but to shatter it until it is unrecognizable. It’s realizing that YOU are the reason your marriage is shit and YOU can change it. It’s finding out that you can not only get by with less, but also get a lot further, faster. It’s letting go of the should haves and supposed to’s. It’s discovering you are stronger, both physicallly and mentally, than you ever realized. It’s learning that you don’t need to react all the damn time. It’s accepting and being just as excited about your path leading you home as you were about it leading you away. All of these revelations were there all along, they were just tucked away deep inside a corner of my universe collecting dust, waiting to be cleaned off and let out into the world breathing in fresh mountain air and running wild.

 

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Coffee or Tea?

I look forward to my coffee in the morning. I admittedly still hit snooze for usually an hour, but the only thing that truly gets my ass out of bed is knowing I can have a cup of coffee. It wasn’t always this way, as I loved the smell, but I couldn’t stand the taste. I used to have coffee envy; driving to work in the morning and seeing fellow commuters in their car with their travel mug filled with coffee, made me envious. Coffee is one of those things that people long for, can’t wait for, can’t function without. It wakes them up, puts them in check, gets things started for them. I wanted to be a part of that world.

My world, up to this point, revolved around tea. I grew up with it, and was surrounded by it. Every woman in my family drank tea as if it were water. Every day, all day. When they wanted to relax, when they wanted to talk, when they wanted to decompress they had tea. When they were thirsty, they did not grab a glass of water, they made a cup of tea. I even remember drinking a very milky, watered down tea in my bottle as I laid down on the floor watching late morning cartoons. Tea was more than a caffeinated beverage. It meant something to my family. It was a symbol of our connection. Nine out of 10 times when I walked into my grandparents house,  my grandfather would be sitting at the kitchen window with a cup of tea in front of him. Before I could shut the door behind me, he would already be up to put the water on for me. When my Nana would play poker with my sister and me, she would hide good cards under the table with one hand, while holding a cup of tea with the other. When we would go through her tins of jewelry with hopes she would let us take a piece home, we had a cup of tea. When my aunt would come for a visit and we would sit around the table doodling on random scraps of paper, we had a cup of tea. When me and my sisters needed to talk or wanted some company, we would have a cup of tea.

After dinner we would clean up and have a cup of tea. Putting the water on was exciting, similar to the way people get excited about putting the game on. When we were all living at home, we would get into our pajamas and have a cup of tea in the kitchen when the house had gotten quiet. Dad had gone to bed, and mom would be in the living room falling asleep to the tv. It was without exaggeration, our favorite activity.  When our favorite tv shows were on we would get in our comfy clothes, and put the water on. We had it timed perfectly so we were all sitting on the couch with tea in hand when the show started. Sometimes I would drink tea because I just had nothing else to do, or because I was hungry but couldn’t decide what I wanted, When a sister said, “do you want a cup of tea?”, it meant so much more. It meant do you want to talk? Do you want to be by my side? It meant we were sharing this life together. It was a good moment in a life that was filled with many bad ones. It was a saving grace. It was a comfort like no other. That cup of tea had healing power. The space  between the first dip of the tea bag and the last sip was untouchable. It was safe, it was quiet, it was laughter, and it was tears. Sometimes it was silent, and sometimes it was non stop chatter. Sometimes it was sharing a happy story, and sometimes it was wallowing in depression. That cup of tea was the only constant. It was there to celebrate birthdays and aid in the devastation of losing a grandparent. It made life more livable. 

Now that I am older, life and tea have changed a little. I no longer live with my sisters, for one, and I have become the coffee loving adult I always wanted to be.  Life is funny the way all the little things you once enjoyed are either gone, or enjoyed differently. Everything takes on a new meaning. I still enjoy a cup of tea when I visit with my sisters, but it isn’t as frequent. There are so many more facets of life that just weren’t there before. My sisters are no longer the only shoulders I have to lean on. That cup of tea is no longer my only saving grace, it’s been replaced with a paycheck, a massage, a glass of wine, a vacation, or a night out with my wife. It doesn’t hold as much weight as it used to. It makes me wonder, am I losing an important part of my life? Am I letting go of my roots? Have I lost sight of the important things, the simple things, the things that didn’t have to do with bills, appointments, and work? Was I letting my cup of comfort be replaced with a cup of necessity? The tea has physically changed too, just as I have. With my new found knowledge of the effects of sugar and dairy, it’s typically black or herbal. The sweet milkiness has vanished. I guess my tea has grown up too.

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Journey

Who are you

Are you lost

Were you left up there in the mountains somewhere 

Or did you fade away in a river drowning with the current

Did the forest close in on you, giants surrounding you until you were hidden

A leaf amongst a sea of green. A blanket

Is it keeping you warm

 

The earth, is it protecting you

Is it showing you things, things that you have been looking for

Or do you find yourself searching in a moonless night

 

Are you turning soft like moss

Or hard like stone

And is it cold up there balancing on those peaks

 

Have you made peace with what you could no longer withstand

Does the battle fade with the distance

 

The longer you are away, the further you get

The steeper the grade, the slower the gain

 

And every time you ask yourself, am I there yet

You will know less and less about where you are headed

 

 

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My Inland has no Empire

 

I hate California. Who the hell are these people?  Maybe I shouldn’t be so broad. I hate Southern California. SoCal.  I hate the palm trees, the barren highways, the littered sidewalks. I hate the term SoCal. The people who live here think it is THE place to be. They think so highly of this bottom portion of one of the biggest states in our country that it is almost its own state. The other half, the top section, the greener, prettier, and more scenic (better half if you ask me), is the middle of nowhere. It is the ugly little sister that your parents make you take everywhere no matter how much you contest.

I have to give it some credit. It has the ocean and the mountains. However, in between the gorgeous blue pacific and the glistening ridges of the San Gabriels, past the glamorous L.A city skyline and Bentley strewn streets of Beverly Hills is a pocket of sweltering heat called the Inland Empire. It is inland but it is no empire. What is funny to me is that despite the vast differences and the fact that on a good day it can take two and a half hours to get to and from L.A, the people here consider themselves to be under the LA umbrella. I hate to break it to you but this is NOT L.A. It is NOT fashion forward, NOT progressive, NOT the best weather you can find, NOT the most laid back. It. Just. Is. Not.

Here is my view, my opinion really, except that I believe it to be fact. You enter the I.E. and you are literally HIT with heat. It is dry, heavy and fierce. You would never know you were an hour from the beach.  It is like being teased with the ocean breeze dangling by a string over your head. The highways are lined with brown mounds of rock and dirt interrupted randomly by enormous warehouses the size of three city blocks. They are massive, white, concrete squares with few windows. The streets are lined with palm trees, which makes for great pictures especially with snow-capped mountains off in the background. But that’s only if you are looking up. At ground level there are piles of litter everywhere, I didn’t even know littering was still a thing. I thought it disappeared with pay phones. The concept that people actually have trash that they throw out of their car windows or, by the looks of it, a barrel of trash that they empty directly on the side of the street is baffling to me.  Everything is brown. Brown, dry and hot. Really, really hot.

I also find it quite interesting the lack of interest there is in any other part of this country. Here in the I.E, Southern Californians think nothing else in the country matters because they think everything that is happening, is happening in Southern California. They have the narrowest view of this country and most other countries as well because all they know is Southern California. They do not travel much outside of the state, they do not think they need to.  But for an area that is considered so forward thinking and ahead of the curve, they do not get out much. Don’t you need to though? In order to be the one in the front of the pack, don’t you need to know who you are competing against?

It feels like one big contradiction. You get this idea that everyone is open minded, accepting, free spirited. Almost everyone is covered in tattoos. They have hair every color of the rainbow.  And yet, I have heard open discussions at my work about the bible and seen people reading the bible at Panera.  I hear young millennials talking about what church they go to. There are small tattoos of crosses on the insides of wrists and that fish symbol with JESUS written inside the body stuck to the backs of cars. I am not saying you can’t have tattoos and be religious and I am not saying there is anything wrong with being religious. But in my whole life I have never heard so much God talk. Quite frankly, it makes me pretty uncomfortable. I thought it was an unwritten rule (actually I am pretty sure it is written down somewhere) that there are two things you do not discuss at work/in public. Politics and religion. It has to be said, I live in the bible belt of California.

Don’t even get me started on food. I have never seen so many fast food restaurants in my life and what’s worse, I’ve never seen so many people go to fast food restaurants in my life. I was embarrassed when I would go to McDonalds for an ice coffee in the town I worked in back in Massachusetts. I practically ducked in my car hoping no one would see me and think I was ordering a Big Mac and fries. I wished they had a separate drive thru lane for coffee only so noone would mistake me for a fast food junkie. The other day I heard excitement over a new Wendys coming in across the street from a co-workers and everyone walks around with those enormous slurpee size cups full of soda. The organic food movement, small plates and farm to table are mysterious concepts here. There are no butchers or bakeries. Good meat is the deli counter at Stater Bros. This is hell for a foodie, unless you are a foodie trying to save money. In which case you are in the right spot, it’s slim pickins.

All everyone says to me about living here is how wonderful it is. In one hour you can get to the beach, the mountains, L.A, San Diego.  It is central to everything and you can’t beat the weather. Well that is all true if you can manage to make it through five different highways that are seven lanes across, with millions of people driving on them daily and not hit traffic. If you can handle the motorcycles whizzing past you in between lanes and manage not to rear end the multiple cars that cut right in front of you without using a blinker, you will be golden. The weather is great when it isn’t June, July, August or September and the smog doesn’t cover up the view of the mountains.  I want to love it because it appears that so many people do. I feel as though I am doing something wrong, am I missing something? I can’t help but think everyone loves it here so much because they have nothing else to compare it to.

When I tell people that I am from Massachusetts I get hit with a plethora of questions. Does it snow there?  Does it ever not snow? Does it ever get hot there? That’s up near Canada right? Is it near the beach? Can you actually go to the beach though? That’s a red state isn’t it? It’s somewhere above Georgia? They are shocked to learn about the houses built in the 1700 ‘s that are still standing, or the abundance of eclectic restaurants or the liberal pride or the beautiful beaches. They think any town with only one high school must have dirt roads and no electricity.  They also think if it isn’t L.A or N.Y.C it isn’t relevant.  I have plenty I could say about L.A but I do not live in L.A, I live in the I.E  and neither is anything like N.Y.C. As for the population here, they should venture out into the great U.S and perhaps they should start in MA.

*I wrote this during the eight months I lived in California.