this starbucks is like an episode of star trek.

I traveled into the city today. It’s a pretty big change to go from a little town where everyone knows everyone and people are all pretty normal and friendly to the city where a woman with bright pink hair in a full gold outfit just glared at me like I was the one that looked like a royal sceptre with a pink bauble on top. A man just walked by with no hair but a little tuft at the very front of his head like maybe he was balding but too embarrassed to just go ahead and shave his head. It’s a very different feel here in the city. Asians are everywhere; there’s a study group to the left of me, they’re serving my coffee, they’re flocking through the streets. This isn’t my home and contrary to Step-Mom’s hopeful beliefs, it never will be. To get here, I had to get on the bus. This isn’t a big deal in my home town but here, the bus is serious business.

We were all taken from the ferry and crammed onto one bus like sardines, about fifty little Boonies people stuck together. There was this pleasant Irish woman I’d taken the bus with on the other side(the safe side) and she got on the bus again with me on the city side of things with her young daughter in her stroller. Her daughter was nearly two and had the blondest hair and bluest eyes. She was adorable and her mom’s accent definitely made me happy. What didn’t make me happy was the child screaming and crying on the bus.

Why? Why do babies do this? They scream, they toss a fit, they tantrum like no other, and then they fall asleep. Is it just a final act of rebellion because they know they’ll fall asleep soon? Was it just her way of pissing Mom off one more time as payback for stuffing her into that stroller? Or is that legitimately how they’re trying to communicate? Hearing that baby screaming and wanting to punch it made me realize and determine for certain that I’m never allowed to have kids.

I’m uncomfortable here. This isn’t my element. I moved from a small town to a smaller town and this isn’t somewhere I feel happy or safe and so, in an attempt to maintain some sort of dignity and find some semblance of security and home, I tripped directly into Starbucks. It’s packed with people, woman-in-gold, Asian study groups and the exact same Christmas album I play at my work. It’s like being in a different dimension. I know this place, I’ve been here before and it’s somewhere I spend a lot of my time, but it’s different. It feels like home but it also does not.

I don’t belong here. I want to go home.