carlisleiq:

toobadvampire:

I am convinced that there isn’t another place in the world like Keokuk.

My friends and I, my acquaintances, those kids I knew in high school that I see at the grocery store and Walmart and walking down main street, we’re all in our twenties now.  I’m almost halfway through being 24, but that’s not scary at all.  In high school I was friends with all sorts of kids with different kinds of families, and when high school ended some moved and went to college and some didn’t.  A few went to community college, fewer pulled through and went on to working on their bachelors.  For every single one that stayed I wondered what would happen to them in this world, but I really believed that they were nothing like the older people I saw in this town.  All these kids were something special, they were creative, enthusiastic, good kids.  Something would work out.

In Keokuk we are all clinging to this slippery slope, all one move away from falling down and getting stuck, of being something less.  We all had dreams.  We all wanted something for ourselves, every last one of us.  Then I go out in this town and I see people working crappy jobs and I see kids hanging out on their front porch with their dog tied to it all day and I wonder what happened.  I see these people that I cared about become dependent on drugs or alcohol just like so many of our parents.  I see people I never thought I would have to worry about wonder what it would be like to do this or that thing that makes me cringe inside.

None of us are safe.  We were meant for so much more than this.  We are so smart, so talented, and yet life is so hard.  Going to college I realized that life is one hundred times harder for us than it is for the average college student.  Kids from the suburbs don’t have the worries we do.  There are so many places that are worse to live in than this little town in the middle of nowhere that I can’t help but feel cheated that it’s still so hard overcoming this upbringing.

I’m tired of my heart breaking.  I want some happy endings.  Should I just set my sights lower?

Just had to reblog this. Perfectly said.

 Dont set your sights lower… c’mon guys you determine your own happy ending, success is all in your attitude… and maybe a willingness to move.