You Are Now Leaving Paradise

I can’t say it was time wasted. I learned a lot during my short time at Paradise Gardens and Farm.  I still wonder if I were a different person, if I could of stayed and put up with the extreme personality of the Farmer’s wife.  Again I was faced with a difficult person, and I wondered what I was supposed to learn from this experience.  Silence?  Humility?  Was I supposed to be the stronger person? Was I supposed to become aware of my weakness in the face of such difficulty?  Am I to expect that I will bail when faced with what seems to be the impossible.  Steven, the other ex-intern, would give a definitive “NO!  She was an impossible woman.”


Like I said, it wasn’t time wasted.  I walked onto my future internship and everything was familiar.  Differences: bovine are humongous - I mean their heads are the size of baby goats…baby goats with very pointy horns that have 800 pounds behind them to give you a good spearing.  “Don’t let them get you up against the fence” was the advice of the lead farmer, when trying to turn one of the cows around to go into the milking pallor.  I play this image out in my head.  “The fence is potentially the way out. Okay, well if it weren’t for the fact that the gate is locked.  So,  I should fight the urge, when the animal’s head is down, horns charging towards me, and you not to run towards the fence.  Okay. Got it.  Yeah, right.”


Currently I’m staying at my brother’s and sharing a finished den with my seventeen year old niece.  This has given me a clear reminder why I don’t have children…and possibly insight into why my mother beat the shit out of my sister when we were younger.  Okay, maybe not.  It’s not good to beat your children,  no matter how much you want to, or how much they may deserve it!  I’ve wanted to clock her on several occasions and sometimes when I think of her shitty attitude, I want to clock her when I see her, which would probably cause her confusion, but elicit complete understanding from her mother.  “No matter how much you want to or how much they deserve it. Restrain, restrain, restrain.”  This is my mantra.  


I’m nervous about my future.  “What do you hope to do after you finish the internship?”  A constant question I get when people ask, “So, what are you doing now?”  My reply.  “I have no idea.”  That sounds rational.  I hope it takes the edge of the absurd reply when I say it with complete confidence.  


I stopped by my Uncle’s family farm.  It full of reminders of days long past.  His cousin is now running the farm, and it looks like he’s in need of help.  Maybe that could be something I do part time.  He said he was, but people always say that until you start giving them what they asked for.  No one, including myself, likes to be told what to do.  Ego. 


I left paradise.  It wasn’t mine.  I know that uncertainty and unlimited potential is my path to my own paradise.  Without a doubt.  No need for fingers crossed.