Monday, April 17, 2006
to all my friends: you are my ass.
seattle, i am missing you so bad, girl. in that sloppy, sentimental, boyz II men kind of way.
i think it's because the sun is coming out, and back home that's such a happening, when the sun starts to reliably come out once in a while. here it is, too, except it's already starting to get humid and i can't help but be apprehensive about the Great Urine Festival that july and august bring (june is not completely innocent on that one, either). where at home spring is the relief of long term greyness, here it's a warning shot across the bow.
i've been thinking about how i really have something to do here, now. there's school, and there's my great apartment that we're still fixing up, there's the stuff on my new york list i'm committed to getting done so that when i do leave here, it's without regrets. and school is big. and necessary. i am definitely glad about school.
still, though. part of me is just realizing that you can't always get what you want, and later this will be the decade when i didn't get to live in seattle, no matter how many other good things happen, no matter how many excellent reasons there were for me to move away, figure shit out, go back to school and forcibly left-turn things.
part of me doesn't want a left turn. most of me does, including at least 50% of the heart and most of the mind. the brain stem, however, wants to be on the deck at linda's having a beer and learning some lines. maybe with my old haircut and the white honda i drove back then. part of me wants the life i'd have had if i hadn't left. whatever that is.
one of my biggest fears is that i'll end up someone without a real home. sometimes i think about what would happen if we got married. would we get married here? this place feels too contentious for that to seem right. and i still feel like my people are back home. but however i feel, we don't live there. if we got married in some backyard in seattle, i'm sure the five friends i've kept up with would come, but that's not the community i remember having when i was there. there is no giant party, anymore. there is no deep circle. and if i move somewhere else for a Ph.D. next year, it's just going to be more like that: a dozen excellent friends sprinkled across the country, and no one place that feels like home.
whatever. i guess it's fine. i'm reading this over, sort of ashamed at whining when i have so much more than most. every other time in my life i was homesick, i went home. this time appears to be different. and i'm excited about what's coming up . . . just, it still aches a bit. maybe if it's always like this, i'll just have to come back some day after having been gone, and think of the gap as what it took for me to come back as a grown up. a grown up with hearing damage and a master's degree who drinks seltzer and saw blossom dearie live at danny's deep sea lounge. i guess there are worse things.
i think it's because the sun is coming out, and back home that's such a happening, when the sun starts to reliably come out once in a while. here it is, too, except it's already starting to get humid and i can't help but be apprehensive about the Great Urine Festival that july and august bring (june is not completely innocent on that one, either). where at home spring is the relief of long term greyness, here it's a warning shot across the bow.
i've been thinking about how i really have something to do here, now. there's school, and there's my great apartment that we're still fixing up, there's the stuff on my new york list i'm committed to getting done so that when i do leave here, it's without regrets. and school is big. and necessary. i am definitely glad about school.
still, though. part of me is just realizing that you can't always get what you want, and later this will be the decade when i didn't get to live in seattle, no matter how many other good things happen, no matter how many excellent reasons there were for me to move away, figure shit out, go back to school and forcibly left-turn things.
part of me doesn't want a left turn. most of me does, including at least 50% of the heart and most of the mind. the brain stem, however, wants to be on the deck at linda's having a beer and learning some lines. maybe with my old haircut and the white honda i drove back then. part of me wants the life i'd have had if i hadn't left. whatever that is.
one of my biggest fears is that i'll end up someone without a real home. sometimes i think about what would happen if we got married. would we get married here? this place feels too contentious for that to seem right. and i still feel like my people are back home. but however i feel, we don't live there. if we got married in some backyard in seattle, i'm sure the five friends i've kept up with would come, but that's not the community i remember having when i was there. there is no giant party, anymore. there is no deep circle. and if i move somewhere else for a Ph.D. next year, it's just going to be more like that: a dozen excellent friends sprinkled across the country, and no one place that feels like home.
whatever. i guess it's fine. i'm reading this over, sort of ashamed at whining when i have so much more than most. every other time in my life i was homesick, i went home. this time appears to be different. and i'm excited about what's coming up . . . just, it still aches a bit. maybe if it's always like this, i'll just have to come back some day after having been gone, and think of the gap as what it took for me to come back as a grown up. a grown up with hearing damage and a master's degree who drinks seltzer and saw blossom dearie live at danny's deep sea lounge. i guess there are worse things.
