You want what you don’t have. Your exaggerated perception of others feeds your pity party. Although meant to uplift and brighten your mood, thinking about it makes you envy their every move. Life on the west coast makes you “ooo” and life on the east coast makes you “awe.” You compare yourself to others and

for what? To reduce uncertainties in your own life? Perhaps this time you will be satisfied.

Maybe later you’ll be happy you never settled down in that little boring town. The one with the 50 student high-school. But when you know everyone, it feels more like being home-schooled.

So you make it a goal to get out of town. Out-there, over-there, just going anywhere. “I want to be as free as a bird and see the world,” you write. The buildings are not tall enough where you live. The streets are not busy enough where you live and so you hid. You hid behind a persona of diversified locations on your Instagram map. You hid behind words on a screen. And every time you look back at them you really just want to scream. You wrestle with the thoughts in your mind; are we all the same or is our differentness sublime?

You call walking 20 yards off the path in the park an adventure. The shoes you’re wearing have been to more places than you just counting the pit stops they took while being shipped. Try not to get yourself down though, keep looking for the silver-lining. You want so eagerly to talk to strangers and find out their life story, but don’t because its out of the norm and theres no room in your important schedule. When strangers do talk to you, you sink in your emotions while suppressing your smiles and pull out your list of achievements. You rattle them off like its the biggest part of your bio. And if the stranger is impressed then you leave feeling success. But if they’re not, or if their bio of achievements is better than yours , then you decompress to that 50 student high-school, when you were never Mr. cool. The 50 student high-school when you were never Ms. popular. Somehow, in the small school, you never held a combined status of Mr. and Mrs.

You think you would have stayed if you were yearned by anthers gaze. That boring town would be home today instead of something resembling a social burn. You want what you don’t have because you never took joy in simply being alone, sitting with your thoughts and learning to call that place of peace your home.