Filtering Explanations

When people from my hometown asked why I was moving to Austin, I couldn’t tell them it was because I wanted space from the friendships and relationships I had accummulated and found refuge in the past 15 years. I couldn’t tell them I wanted to be stripped of security and I wanted loneliness so I could focus on my writing. I couldn't tell them my voice box felt like it was being stepped on and I was restless for independence and something raw. I couldn’t tell them Omaha had become like an old scratchy couch to me, the kind that swallows you into its fold like quicksand when you sit.

I told my loved ones Austin stole my heart when I was in town visiting my grandparents over the holidays. I told them I could be making nine bones an hour anywhere, instead at the front desk of a hotel in an old scratchy swallowing couch of a town. I made the part about the couch stay inside my head. Funny how the same couch can give two people an entirely different sitting experience.