Summertime Sadness

There's something magical about sitting in your backyard on a Sunday afternoon the moment church is about to begin. 

It's like walking out of class early. 

It's like calling in sick to work on a Monday morning. 

It's like walking around barefoot on the carpet after you've been wearing roller skates for two hours. 

My name is Kyle Nelson and I'm 100% human. I have 206 bones, 9 scars, and a heart that's way too close to my chest. I stay up too late and swear too much and I don't check the oil in my car as often as I should. 

I'm scared to go on the roof of my house. 

And here I am. Alone in my backyard. While my kids are wrecking the house and my wife is reading. While my neighbor is hocking loogies in his backyard and everyone else is driving to church. While my dad is watching TV in his dark, dirty house and my mom is making bread in her nice, clean one, listening to country music with her new husband. While my brother is in jail and my friends only exist on Facebook. While the world is reeling from shootings, accidents, earthquakes, and war. I sit in my backyard alone. 

And I'm just trying to capture it all. 

Before the clouds get too low and all we can see is white. Before we fall asleep and forget everything that happened today. The birds are making noise and I can't tell if it's a song or a cry for help. My neighbor hocking up phlegm says everything in my heart right now. 

Lana Del Rey is the one who told me about this sadness. This sadness in the middle of the summer, when everything is supposed to be fireworks and popsicles and suntans. But my heart is sunburned and drinking this Aloe Vera is starting to make me sick. 

Shit. 

I have nothing to be depressed about. I'm heathy and tan and married and free and tall and rich and poor and humble and tired and lazy and worried and I'm drinking a Pepsi right now. I'm turning 35 in a few days and maybe that's really what it all comes down to. 

I can feel Obama and Mitt in my veins and I wonder how long it can go on like this. My feet are numb and tingly and the birds are starting to make nests in my hair. I looked between the houses and saw the mountains for the first time. I finally realized that my trees are the biggest in the neighborhood and if I climbed them I could see the whole world from my backyard. 

But I'm afraid of heights. 

Besides, those branches could never hold me.