I’m from a super republican conservative town. All the kids are raised on sports and hunting and practically nothing else, and for the most part many love it. But I didn’t. I loved science, art, and business/finance. Literally started learning money on my own when I was 5 out of raw interest. When I was in kindergarten at probably the most sportsy of the schools in the district and having a super lonely time, and upset I couldn’t make any friends, parents told me we were gonna move to one of those big cities I saw on the TV that had art communities, and music theaters, and kids science events and all kinds of urban shit. I started daydreaming even harder at the thought of walking home from school and getting into a high rises elevator with my new friends. Said dad got a job that’d let us go, and after his first paycheck we’d go see a symphony. I was ecstatic, and they were tearing up but my 6 or so year old self thought it was because they were happy. Later on they told me we couldn’t go but he was gonna apply for other places.

Held onto that hope for 7 years. Then when I was having a horrible year in my first year of jr high at a new school, and asked why we weren’t in a city even though mom was crying tears of joy at the thought of moving to one back them, found out mom was actually crying at seeing how happy it made me. Because we couldn’t afford a city, and neither of them wanted to go to one.