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i'm in florida and i'm really having a great time. we haven't done anything spectacular, nothing that i couldn't do anywhere else...
but i think the air here - the thick, humid, hot air that i'm really starting to love as much as i used to hate it - is making me think. chicago's not my home. i decided to stay there another year. not for my own reasons, but for someone else's. i don't regret staying because i really don't know where i would've gone. i feel like i want to move "home" but when i say that i mean back to waterford (or some other town in oakland county - where i'd lived my whole life until chicago). a girl i know (a girl from home) said, "when everything you know has changed, is it still home?" and i guess it's really not. the things i love about living at home have all changed. the house i lived in is there and my dad still lives there, but the house i called "home" is now abandoned, waiting to be bought and then torn down. the people who lived there - who i called "family" - have moved on. some to kalamazoo where they've developed new interests, new personalities, new friends. some travelled the world, and later got jobs where they met new, different people, and developed new personalities. some had babies, some got married, some moved across the country, some discovered drugs.... etc. etc. etc.
the point is, i don't really have a home anymore. it's hard to start over and it's taken me this whole time to come to grips with the fact that it's inevitable. i've always had a group of people that i could call "family." a group that hung out and had fun all the time and who i really felt important to and accepted by. all that has been gone for over a year now. don't get me wrong - i know that i have friends and i know that the people who're "really my friends" will "always be there" but i'm just seriously longing to really fit in again. i hate feeling so awkward. why are things like this so much easier for little kids? i haven't dealt with this since i was a 5th grader and it didn't seem so difficult then. maybe i'm being silly, but i really don't think i'll ever have it as good as i did. and it's definitely not a case of "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." i knew, and i lived it, i just wasn't ready for it to be over and well, i guess everyone else was. everyone else had somewhere else to go and someone else to lean on.
i really have never felt so lonely in my life.
but i think the air here - the thick, humid, hot air that i'm really starting to love as much as i used to hate it - is making me think. chicago's not my home. i decided to stay there another year. not for my own reasons, but for someone else's. i don't regret staying because i really don't know where i would've gone. i feel like i want to move "home" but when i say that i mean back to waterford (or some other town in oakland county - where i'd lived my whole life until chicago). a girl i know (a girl from home) said, "when everything you know has changed, is it still home?" and i guess it's really not. the things i love about living at home have all changed. the house i lived in is there and my dad still lives there, but the house i called "home" is now abandoned, waiting to be bought and then torn down. the people who lived there - who i called "family" - have moved on. some to kalamazoo where they've developed new interests, new personalities, new friends. some travelled the world, and later got jobs where they met new, different people, and developed new personalities. some had babies, some got married, some moved across the country, some discovered drugs.... etc. etc. etc.
the point is, i don't really have a home anymore. it's hard to start over and it's taken me this whole time to come to grips with the fact that it's inevitable. i've always had a group of people that i could call "family." a group that hung out and had fun all the time and who i really felt important to and accepted by. all that has been gone for over a year now. don't get me wrong - i know that i have friends and i know that the people who're "really my friends" will "always be there" but i'm just seriously longing to really fit in again. i hate feeling so awkward. why are things like this so much easier for little kids? i haven't dealt with this since i was a 5th grader and it didn't seem so difficult then. maybe i'm being silly, but i really don't think i'll ever have it as good as i did. and it's definitely not a case of "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." i knew, and i lived it, i just wasn't ready for it to be over and well, i guess everyone else was. everyone else had somewhere else to go and someone else to lean on.
i really have never felt so lonely in my life.