{"id":316,"date":"2025-11-07T00:56:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T00:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/?page_id=316"},"modified":"2025-11-13T19:22:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T19:22:52","slug":"townie","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/non-fiction\/townie\/","title":{"rendered":"Townie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anna Starkey<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m from here, yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is where I went to high school. This is where I learned to skate. This is where I smoked my first blunt. And this is where I came to be alone and look at the stars, the same stars as anyone else in the world can see. Anywhere else. This is where we had picnics with the greenest grass and no food but lots of words. This is the way we ran when we were chased off the property. These are the silos we climbed sometimes on a Friday night as a small act of teenage rebellion. Over here is my dad\u2019s childhood home.\u00a0 And over there is his mom\u2019s and, just behind it, where her dad\u2019s was before they bulldozed it to build student housing. I\u2019ll take you to my lake since I know you love the beach. You can meet generations of my family all buried together. The living and the dead, here, together. You can also get the best burger you have ever had in the dive formerly owned by near strangers who share my last name. This is where my best friend used to live and this is where my parents still live and where my bus stopped. Where we jumped rope and caught rolly-pollies. The ghosts of my friends play in my memories, which makes me wonder if I am a ghost too. This is where I had my first kiss in a dirty basement on New Year’s Eve, or, technically, Day, I guess. This is the liquor store that sells to high schoolers. And, on this corner, is where I once threw up peach-flavored vodka. It\u2019s easy for some to look at my life with pity in their eyes. Sometimes, I notice my reflection in the bathroom mirror of my parents\u2019 room with their same expression.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stuck is a feeling I know well but that does not necessarily mean I crave freedom. Maybe I have Stockholm syndrome and my captor is my memories. The city once called my name with her twinkling lights and reliable public transit. But, of course, the grass is always greener and there is very little grass between skyscrapers. I did not know the names of the streets or the best route to the grocery store or the secret spots to smoke. Everything was brand new to me and I felt like a tourist in a place I was supposed to call home. In the eyes of many, including my own at times, the only thing worse than not leaving is coming back. It\u2019s not all bad, though. I have friends who want to be with me for the first time ever and my sister is just a few hundred feet away on the other side of our small neighborhood of townhouses.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not the path I planned but it is the one I am on. There was a time when all seemed lost as I trekked through heavy forests with only a steak knife to aid me in my journey. Slowly, though, there was more room for sunshine and signs of life through carved out passages of the brush made by past travelers, proving to me it may be possible to make it out alive. Seventeen-year-old me expected to be cruising down a paved highway by now. Twenty-two-year-old me has aching feet and sore calves, but I am still walking towards the opening not too far ahead where the trees disperse and the bright light casts beams throughout the wildflower fields. Wherever that is, I will find it, in time.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nAnna Starkey I\u2019m from here, yeah. This is where I went to high school. This is where I learned to…\n<\/div>\n
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