A mighty shift is coming and everyone knows it. A fair number of the folks I get to chatting with have a preference to avoid the change; far fewer are preparing for it. Their reasoning varies. We all have our ways. No one wants to lose, but I reckon we’re all going to, one way or another. I am not personally particularly interested in standing up to anyone whose preference is to avert their eyes.

Myself I have focused on the old ways of living and dying. Truthfully I am not sure I would survive given certain unfortunate conditions. Not that I’m the type to take it lying down, mind. Anyone in my acquaintance knows that I would not go quietly. Neither will the upset be any kind of pretty. This storm has been crossing the expanse in our direction quite a while now, slow but sure, picking up wind and speed along the way. It’s probable to do no one good continuing to expect the shining bright sun.

I’m not afraid to tell you it’s the first time I’ve been truly aggrieved at letting friendships fall by the wayside. I don’t want to leave anyone behind, but people won’t be led like that, not when it comes to living free. I am no more fit to lead than the next, and well, I believe it right that everyone have their own mind about a thing.

I figure on teaching the young ones best I know. The future might be dim but our wits can’t be. We got plenty needs dealing with before we might see us on an upswing, and I’m sorry about the kids’ lot in it all.

A small good that’s real mighty in all this is the folks who come along ready to talk about preparing for what’s next. The best good is when it’s folks one’s been acquainted with a while already. Sometimes a body could get to feeling they were all completely alone in this mess, but that ain’t quite the truth. It surely feels isolating now though, what with all signs pointing to worse before better.

We each do what we can with our lot, I reckon. It does no good to fight nature, nor to force any free person to do what they don’t want to. I guess we all oughta hold tight and tend to our own.

There was no oat milk or lactose-free cottage cheese in the few markets i visited in Wisconsin. You probably already know why: “America’s Dairyland”. i guess lactose-intolerant people can just gtfo? Don’t worry, i’m going. But not before i find Lake Michigan, which i’ve met before but to whom i hadn’t cried until now.

i’ve gone too far east for the relevancy of my bird book. The comfort i find in identifying birds slips away as my wheels roll toward the familiar. Everything feels new somehow, and i just want to keep crying for small miracles and great beauties. i’d prefer to mourn lost lovers and ex-friends. Instead, the cool wind comes off this great lake to dry my tears falling for ever more serious issues, none of which are mine to share. If i had a lover i might whisper to them of my new distresses. These days i whisper to myself alone.

The “we” with which i am most familiar, we are growing up. There are babies now, welcomed and adored. i am quite excited to make their acquaintances. People paired off are signing paperwork about it. Everyone is following their own personal dreams. i am learning what it’s like to have seeds of hope that grow roots, but will never bear fruit. What it’s like when you thought “maybe someday”, but now she is getting engaged. How it feels to expect especially strong friends to exist that way forever, only to be faced too soon with the truth.

i’m learning to cultivate my own happiness from loved ones’ joys, no matter the envy inspired. i have found that at this intersection loneliness waits, as patiently as the devil at the crossroads of adulthood. Some days it’s more difficult to pass him by.

Life gets more real as i head east, somehow. Maybe it’s that everyone is free to move about the world again. Maybe it’s that my phone has better service. Perhaps i simply need to satisfy my cottage cheese craving. i know this is a lake, but i can’t shake this feeling here from the too-close shore: that i am watching as the sea takes her most massive gulp, the harbinger of a tsunami of new feelings for which i’ve never prepared.