Dirtsick

I visited my aunt last Thanksgiving and began to tell her some of the struggles in my life.  She said something that stuck with me.
"Wow Lauren, your facebook tells a different story.  It always seems so positive, like you live the perfect life."
It puzzled me for a moment.  Aren't I supposed to maintain the image that I have it all together?  I breathe the air of idealism, and see the world through romantic-colored lenses...

But lo, it rains in my corner of the world like it does everywhere else.  I still have unanswered questions, moments of inadequacy, mediocrity, dullness.  I don't post these on facebook--no.  That's my happy place, my community place.

But if I were to be honest, I'd say I come up lacking.  I don't floss my teeth as much as I should.  I do the minimum to get by in the classes that don't interest me, and spend too much time doing things that have nothing to do with school.  My room, my whole life, has been out of control.  I am addicted to wearing makeup to cover the imperfections of a blemished face.  I bare secret shame.  I buy fresh foods that go to waste and don't eat enough. I am in the process of divorcing the idea that I am always going to be rejected and it's only a matter of time before those I love leave. 

One thing that bothers me about our current lives, is the disproportionate amount of material to organic.  Down here in Oregon, I watch the cars go by on the multiple lane highways, am overstimulated by the glow of billboards and store signs, and numbed by the repetition of fastfood joints from town to town.  When I'm at home in Alaska, the proportion of nature to man made things is, in my mind, ideal.  The mountains dwarf my town, the ocean silences the sound of cars.  Life is a little bit slower.  We linger inside together just a little bit longer.  Our cars rattle and shake with the vicious winds, and trees bend their bows under the weight of the sky's great licking tongue. 

What would it be like to be surrounded by earth again?  Cooking in a kitchen where the floorboards are made of trees, and the veggitables in my hands are from the earth outside in my yard?  Where the fish cooking on the stove is from the neighbor who wants to pay back a favor.
I think I'm homesick...I think I'm dirtsick.  I think I want to live authentically.