Why It's Easy

When I look at my life from the outside, from the perspective of a spectator, watching through picture frames and such, I realize it’s quite charming. The kitchen table, where I sit and stare out the window onto the cornfields leading to the Wabash River, is so quaint in the sunlight, adorned with flowers in their contemporary vases and salt and pepper shakers sitting far enough away from one another for you to know my dad recently picked one of them up and dusted his single and hastily peeled hard boiled egg with it.

I sit there every day and look at the squirrels that, despite my father’s greatest efforts and most miraculous scare tactics, still climb into the bird feeder and steal all the feed. My fridge is covered with pictures that have not moved in years but have only been overlapped partially by new magnets and new family members. The wood paneling that supports the kitchen counter is covered in tape leftover from Sara’s and my accidental art projects.

It’s all so charming, and maybe that’s why I find it so easy to stay here. We are far enough away from the town that I feel cocooned and comforted, and Lafayette does not tempt me. Nothing here tempts me. I hunger for nothing. And whether I ask for it or not, this charming little house gives me everything I need to survive and find a little bit of beauty in my days.

However, it’s never enough and I have to be careful or I am stuck. Stuck at the table, mesmerized by the simplicity of the life my father made for himself and his wife. Sucked into the ease with which everything happens. Rounding another corner in a cycle that never ends, day and night, between episodes of Jeopardy and the nightly news hour. It’s all so easy and predictable. And that’s why it’s easy to be here. And that's why, when I have the money or the job, it will likely be hard to leave. But I’ve never really wanted things to be easy. I’ve always believed one must struggle to find beauty and fulfillment. There is no struggle here, so I feel I’m cheating. Then again, there is little fulfillment here, either, so the only thing I’m cheating is myself.