a trapeze is a birdcage, even if it's empty

i feel very much like my life is wasting away. i'm pretty worried about it. i graduated from college and i moved back home and am having a tough time finding a job, and i feel like my english degree is worthless and broad. i have absolutely no money and am in debt. i have spent thesummersofar traveling to visit friends up and down the east coast since i didn't have a job tying me down, but now i still have no job and i've used up my money and i'm stuck. i have some rough plans though, involving a landscaping job for a month and then going to chicago to start a new life.

this past weekend was my childhood best friend's wedding. it's so weird, because i am at such a different stage in my life than she is. i am so super happy for her and jealous because i feel like her life is progressing and solid and mine is stuck and mushy.

today i road my bike to these woods near my house where i used to play with four blonde sisters who have since moved. one summer we discovered a million blueberry bushes and the foundations of a house and a tree stand that we mistook for a tree fort it was like buried treasure. we picked blueberries and i made a jar and a half of jam, even though my gram said you can't fraction the recipe for jam that we use for strawberries. i hadn't been there in years, every summer i mean to go and then forget until it is too late. so i went there and all the blueberry bushes were dried up like maybe they aren't getting enough sun because they are in the woods or maybe they already bloomed a month ago. the tops of some of them had green leaves. i'm talking like, 15 foot tall bushes like i have never seen. i saw two blueberries totally and i didn't pick them. i came home with an empty basket and hopefully no ticks.

HOWEVER,

the house remains are still there and more amazing upon closer inspection. i didn't have a camera, but i will go back. i found:

a birdcage, and i was so excited because i have always wanted a birdcage to paint a bright color and decorate, but there was a tree growing right through its center. it was crazy, the tree was over ten feet tall and a few inches thick which says something about how long the bird cage has been there.

a blue bicycle, the bicycle of my dreams, half of it in the earth and so rusted that only a few paint chips told me it used to be blue.

a soap-box derby style little kid car. i bet that family that lived there was pretty cool.

also, remnants of a silo with the obvious, tons of old beer cans inside.

i think often about what has to happen to make a family leave a house with their stuff behind like that. i wouldn't want to drink there.