Upstream

Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water. You know how it is, when life keeps taking you places you never thought you’d go, and once you get there you realize you’re not like anyone else there, but you somehow still fit in. For some reason.

Well, I remember when I first moved to Tennessee, and I wrote a lot of poetry. Those were the glory days, before the well dried up and my pen dried up and your love for my writing dried up. Tennessee taught me so many life lessons even though I hated nearly every moment I was there. You know how you can really hate something and yet you can still appreciate what you’ve learned by going through it? That was Tennessee for me, and I am so glad it’s over. But it will never truly be over.

And I remember when I first moved here. Swimming upstream indeed. Thirteen hours north, like a freight train coming and coming… on and on until I ran out of track. Lucky for me this place turned out to be no second Tennessee, no matter how much fate wanted to force it into the same mold. It came from the same place deep inside, but cosmetically it’s so different. I don’t expect you to understand but it’s bone deep. You know, like the soul.

Sometimes I still feel like a fish out of water, flopping on the floor, hoping someone will pick me up and toss me back into the tank. Yet I fit in more now than I ever did before, even though I try my best not to… fit in. Maybe exactly because I try my best not to… fit in. Ironic if I ever really focus on it, so I don’t focus on it. Instead, I just stretch my fins and swim further upstream, grateful for the chance to be me, whoever that is.

Sam