Changes

I could sense the cobwebs growing on this things. I know I have not been the best blogger this last year but I am working on it...one blog post at a time.

I've been home for a little under 3 weeks and the sense of cabin fever is growing on me. Without a car, friends, or even a computer for the last couple of days, I have been trapped inside my house for at least 23 hours a day. This has reminded me of my sense of isolation here, my sense of not belonging and thus longing to be any place else.

I mean the home life is amazing. My mom is glad to have her daughter back home, my brother is glad to have my things to use for the next few weeks, and I am glad for being fed on a regular basis (a luxury I did not have at my aunts). Of course I am happy to be home too. I understand that I may have rushed the whole leaving home thing. I mean days after graduation I was on a train to New York with grandiose assumptions that didn't pan out exactly the way I planned.

But in essence nothing was really planned. I just sort of ran away from home, leaving everything as it was without even trying to tidy up my space here. And it was easy to run away, under the pretense of starting this new life somewhere else. Under the pretense that it had nothing to do with my sense of dread here. So coming back has been a little weird. As if I have stepped into this house that resembles my home except it misses the things that gave it character and heart. And in some way I think that is why my mom needed me here, even if it is only for a little while. She just needed this place to feel like it once did before everything sort of changed.

Speaking of changes, in a couple of days I will have been blogging for four years. This seems insane to me that four years ago I was 19 years old and just starting out on this thing. I still refer to this as my journal because for some reason calling it blog doesn't really fit what I've been writing for the past few years. I think blogs have an agenda and for me I've only wanted to just have a space I could write on. In the age of technology it was just easier to write online than in a notepad.

Four years is a long time. In a way I feel like the same person yet completely different. It's a weird adjustment phase for me because I am on the cusp of whatever adulthood is and instead of having some great epiphany about myself I am struck by the similarities of the girl I am and was.

Case in point: Before leaving New York I decided to concentrate on writing some creative nonfiction. Ever since graduating from college Marie and I have been talking on the phone or texting at least once a day. To date she is the person I have been friends with the longest. I mean we met on the first day of 7th grade and it's been great heartache from then. We are the best of friends and the worst of friends. This last year we have relied on each other for moral support. I have a social while she has a career. She harps about how lonely she is while I complain about struggling to find a job and a sense of direction. We both tell each other it will be okay. That we will be okay before she manages to annoy me on the phone and before I annoy her with my sensitivity. We hang up pissed at each other and then start the whole thing the next day. It works

Anyway, I talk to Marie about writing because I am trying to share my creative ideas with people I trust. I can't be a writer who doesn't talk about her writing because where will that get me. Marie is not the biggest help in the world, but she listens and she does pull me back when my ideas are a little far fetched (like trying to write a story about Peru when I've never been. I am still working on that one). Because we talk about our past a lot, it seemed only fitting that I do some creative nonfiction. I mean I was reading a lot of memoirs and collection of stories by such authors and it seems easy to do. I mean I write about my life almost daily (weekly? okay monthly) and I don't have to much problem doing that. Marie thought it was a good idea and she suggested that I go over some of my journals from the ages I wanted to write about.

This sounded like a good idea, until I got home and started reading the journals I'd written from 7th grade onward. I was an angry little bugger. I could smell the teenage angst on the pages and it brought me back to a place I never want to revisit. It was frightening because I am not an angry person. But I had boiled everything in to a point where I exploded on paper. I mean it's my handwriting, and my thoughts but not entirely the person I am today. Which is a good thing. The point is, it's great to have this stuff written down. I mean I have written in a journal since I was in the sixth grade (which I still have) and it's nice to look back and recognize the parts of myself that have made me who I am today. Or more importantly see how different I am.

There are changes about me, and like I have written so many times before, I have yet to figure out if these changes are good or bad. But for now, it feels right. I think.

Anyway,

I have to do some major remodeling with this journal. Most of my links are now expired. They've been up since the beginning and it feels only fitting to get rid of the ones that no longer work. So the links will be under construction while I add and delete things. It's about time anyway.