I’m a war veteran who now lives a quiet live in central Illinois, making soaps and lotions to sell online. I don’t care much for company or sociality, I like to spend time alone, I like the process of making tangible things to sell. Spending money on supplies, spending time making, earning a profit in response. It’s so basic and capitalist and doesn’t require much paperwork or bureaucracy.
I have a neighbor, she can be too nosy, who checks in from time to time and occasionally drops off some baked goods or whatever she’s been pickling lately. She too prefers the quiet life, although I’m not quite sure why she keeps trying to merge our quiet lives together. But I like her visits, despite my knowing I don’t want to like them. They’re nice little lifelines to civilization.
This blog is an attempt at a larger lifeline to Out There. I don’t have much family, I don’t have any friends from before my time abroad, I never saw the appeal in social media, and I seldom have visitors. The few visitors I have are fellow veterans looking for a moment of escape. They seem to want my life while also pitying me for living it willfully. I don’t understand why people do the things they feel like they are supposed to do when living the live you want is so much simpler. But that’s for them to figure out.