The Settlers

The expectation of our Midwestern families, and our peers who have sadly also been raised by their Midwestern families, is that we will never deviate from the predictable path of school, career, heterosexual partnering, procreation, retirement and death. Any suggestion that an alternate path may be possible is met with the usual scrunched faces and anecdotes about Uncle or Aunt So-And-So who tried something like that once, and of course inevitably, spectacularly failed.

It is a distinctly Midwestern way to socialize, constantly discouraging wild ideas, dismissing monotony as “just part of life.”

But despair is real and it leads to all kind of suicide, from the immediate kind, to the more elaborate, drawn out kind we call “settling down.”

I have known seemingly intelligent people who have intentionally ended their lives with guns and drugs. Why would that seem like an acceptable alternative in the mind of someone with all the wonders of this generation at their fingertips? They were outsiders, that’s all. And they were tired of disappointing everyone. So they did the only thing that would make sense to the ones they were leaving behind. Because people here treat death as the only reason we are here in the first place. It is natural, inevitable, even welcome at times, as opposed to life, which they treat as simply something to get through with a smile on our face so we can die.

To complain is looked down on. Grandpa didn’t complain when he had to work on the railroad fourteen hours a day during the depression.  Mom didn’t complain when she had cancer. What gives us the right to complain about the pollution or lack of intellectually stimulating career opportunities in this city? There’s plenty of work to be done. Just pick something and get busy. They’ll pay you whatever they can and you’ll suit your lifestyle to your means. That’s what we do here. We live within our means and we work. And we don’t complain.

When pioneers were on their way to the West Coast in search of fortune and adventure, many of them dropped off the procession and simply settled along the way. They got to Ohio and said, “Why go any further? This looks perfectly fine.” When Ohio filled up they spilled over into Indiana and said, “Well this seems perfectly fine, too. Why risk everything to go farther?” And so on. It is a lie to say the Midwest was settled by pioneers. California, Oregon and Washington State were settled by pioneers. They went as far as they could possibly go and then had to stop because there was an ocean staring back at them. I’ll bet some of them even tried to walk out into the sea just to see what was out there. A true pioneer would rather die searching than stop being amazed.

The Midwest was settled by Settlers. They settled for this. It was good enough. They could live here, so they did. Every Midwestern boy or girl in the hundreds of years since who ever indicated a propensity for wondering what else might be out there to be experienced besides whatever happened to be going on in his or her hometown has been treated with the same blank expressions and insulted gafaws and disgusted shakes of the head. Their moms have “worried themselves sick” and their dads have quietly opined at the table about the “sensible thing to do.”

Some of those boys and girls have simply gotten up and left. They knew what I know. We are all going to die one day. Dying is no different here than in Hawaii. But living is.

Other, more timid boys and girls have sat down at the table with dad and listened to his folklore. They have felt the tug of their worried mother’s heart and stayed for just enough cups of Sanka to finally sympathize. Those boys and girls unfortunately see both sides of the story. They are friends to no one. They are only keepers of other people’s attitudes and explainers of the different options we supposedly have.

Others still have just killed themselves with drugs or guns or whatever else was available. They endured as much as they could of the prejudice of Midwestern Settlers then finally, when they couldn’t take being an outsider any longer, lacking the courage to simply walk away, they ended it the old fashioned way. And as painful as it was for their so-called loved ones to experience such a loss, it was at least acknowledged at the viewing, over finger sandwiches and tiny cups of instant coffee, as something that “happens sometimes.” A regular occurrence, and therefore acceptable to the group. Suicide is easier for them to understand than moving to California, and less disappointing.