Westbound Sign ➵ Billie Joe Armstrong

Journal Entry

Journal Entry
June something, 1993. I don't care.

I said no.

I thought I could do it. Fake it until I liked it. I couldn't do it.

I don't want it.

The house. The husband. The cake baking. The polite smiles at church socials and PTA meetings. The 3 p.m. grocery run with a toddler on my hip and mascara smudged under my eyes like war paint.

That whole cookie cutter life everyone here seems so proud of like it's the final form of happiness. Like once you've got the ring and the mortgage and a kid with a peanut allergy, you're complete.

I don't want that.

I never did.

But that's what scares me.

Because if I don't want that, then what the hell do I want?

What is the alternative?

And where is everyone like me hiding?

I feel like a castaway before I've even left the shore. Like I'm standing at the edge of something wild, something maybe beautiful, but all I can see is fog. No map. No safety net. Just this feeling in my gut that if I stay here, if I settle

I'll disappear.

Some girls light up at the idea of baby showers and brunch and planning a gender reveal party. Me? I feel like I'm being fitted for a straightjacket. I'd ruin it anyway, drop the cake, cuss in front of someone's mother in law, forget the diapers, forget myself.

But stepping out? Choosing something else?

That's a different kind of fear.

What if there's nothing waiting on the other side?

What if I'm not built for more, just allergic to what's in front of me?

I keep telling myself I'll figure it out. That there's a place for me, even if I haven't seen it yet. But some nights it feels like that place doesn't exist.

Like I'm defective. Ungrateful.Lost.

I watch the girls I grew up with take their vows like they're receiving medals. Like they've won something I never wanted to compete for.

I don't want it, I swear I don't, but I still feel left behind. Like they got a rulebook I never read.

I'm stuck rewriting mine in pencil, erasing more than I ever put down.

I don't know where I belong yet.

But I know it's not here.

And God, that has to count for something.

– C.