"I want a race well-run, ahead of the gun, with a dance before the far finish line..."
So here I am and here I've been since Monday, home. Or not home. Being twenty-three and across the country from your parents' house is a strange and disorienting experience. But anyway, I'm here, in Philadelphia.
Coming "home" has been pretty strange the last few years. It was strange the last two years of college, because my parents moved my junior year and I came home from Strasbourg to a much larger and very different house from the cluttered row-home I'd lived in my entire life. Despite two summers, the room I'm sitting in now -- the kind of huge, multi-windowed, window-seated room I dreamed of as a kid -- has never felt entirely mine; more mine than the rest of the house, for sure, but not mine in the way my little box in the old house was, or even mine the way the various dorm rooms and now my little cocoon in Seattle became. I'm neither a guest nor at home here, and it's a very odd feeling.
"Home" also depresses me lately. It's impossible for me to separate this place from my last summer here -- all the emotions surrounding graduation, all the difficulties of packing and moving, all the awfulness and grief of that last week. This is the room where I cried bittersweet tears the night of commencement, hugging the scarf my roomies got me; this is the room where I was crying very different tears just a few months later, packing and grieving. And since then every time I've been here I've been sweeping through in the grip of some strong emotion or another -- my great-grandfather's funeral, the Loremaster's wedding, the Beepist's wedding and the 'Bear's departure for Palestine. For only having lived two summers in this room, it's got an awful lot of memories attached to it. But they're all pretty intense ones and reliving them is not a pleasant experience. Given that my new five-year-plan includes moving back to Philadelphia and probably IN with my parents to pay rent and help with the house and bills and all, this is something I'd better work through.
Anyway. Now I'm just sitting here, typing away on my work laptop while I wait for Maman's sister and her daughters and husband to arrive. Her elder daughter, who I will call Belle, is so one of my favorite people ever. She's this intelligent, creative, witty not-so-little-anymore girl that I've loved since I held her in my lap when she was just a few days old. (She's also a total little geek, which is probably partly my fault. During the week we spent with her parents after her birth, I kept holding her in my lap while I watched taped episodes of "Babylon 5" and read "Notre-Dame de Paris" out loud to myself. I mean, that's GOT to be a scarring experience at 3 days old.) I haven't seen her since last Christmas and that for only a few days, so I'm psyched.
In other news....ummm, not a whole lot. Work is crazy lately. So crazy that I actually TOOK the laptop I use as a computer at work WITH me, just so I could get stuff done while I was home. (My parents have a computer, but it's in the guest room that my brother pretty much uses as his bedroom unless he's kicked out by guests, so I'm not going to get a whole lot of time on there. ) There's so much going on and so many new things I'm trying to get started. But oh, do the people I work with ROCK. The Boss and the Equestrienne, our super-cool advocacy & organizing director, have always rocked. Likewise the super-efficient, always-cool Financial Jock. But in the last five months we've hired all these other super-cool people that I'll call by their titles unless I come up wtih a name for them -- a feisty and passionate Traveler who works with me, a gifted Vistaguy who writes awesomely and is one of those sort of, filtering personalities, if you know what I mean: stress goes in and peace comes out. He's a good match with me and the Traveler, who both stress a bit too much. Then we've got a frighteningly efficient JVC, a sweet and spunky Volunteer Manager, and an Office Manager who's totally sarcastic and nerdy and reminds me of 'Nuhurst, and I totally love her. I really like spending time with these people; lately we've all been saying that we need to hang out together outside of work, because as it is we're doing too much hanging out together INSIDE of work and, surprisingly enough, that cuts down on the amount of, you know, work that gets done. And as aforementioned, there's a lot of that work stuff to get done.
Aha, a doorbell! Off to familialize!
Coming "home" has been pretty strange the last few years. It was strange the last two years of college, because my parents moved my junior year and I came home from Strasbourg to a much larger and very different house from the cluttered row-home I'd lived in my entire life. Despite two summers, the room I'm sitting in now -- the kind of huge, multi-windowed, window-seated room I dreamed of as a kid -- has never felt entirely mine; more mine than the rest of the house, for sure, but not mine in the way my little box in the old house was, or even mine the way the various dorm rooms and now my little cocoon in Seattle became. I'm neither a guest nor at home here, and it's a very odd feeling.
"Home" also depresses me lately. It's impossible for me to separate this place from my last summer here -- all the emotions surrounding graduation, all the difficulties of packing and moving, all the awfulness and grief of that last week. This is the room where I cried bittersweet tears the night of commencement, hugging the scarf my roomies got me; this is the room where I was crying very different tears just a few months later, packing and grieving. And since then every time I've been here I've been sweeping through in the grip of some strong emotion or another -- my great-grandfather's funeral, the Loremaster's wedding, the Beepist's wedding and the 'Bear's departure for Palestine. For only having lived two summers in this room, it's got an awful lot of memories attached to it. But they're all pretty intense ones and reliving them is not a pleasant experience. Given that my new five-year-plan includes moving back to Philadelphia and probably IN with my parents to pay rent and help with the house and bills and all, this is something I'd better work through.
Anyway. Now I'm just sitting here, typing away on my work laptop while I wait for Maman's sister and her daughters and husband to arrive. Her elder daughter, who I will call Belle, is so one of my favorite people ever. She's this intelligent, creative, witty not-so-little-anymore girl that I've loved since I held her in my lap when she was just a few days old. (She's also a total little geek, which is probably partly my fault. During the week we spent with her parents after her birth, I kept holding her in my lap while I watched taped episodes of "Babylon 5" and read "Notre-Dame de Paris" out loud to myself. I mean, that's GOT to be a scarring experience at 3 days old.) I haven't seen her since last Christmas and that for only a few days, so I'm psyched.
In other news....ummm, not a whole lot. Work is crazy lately. So crazy that I actually TOOK the laptop I use as a computer at work WITH me, just so I could get stuff done while I was home. (My parents have a computer, but it's in the guest room that my brother pretty much uses as his bedroom unless he's kicked out by guests, so I'm not going to get a whole lot of time on there. ) There's so much going on and so many new things I'm trying to get started. But oh, do the people I work with ROCK. The Boss and the Equestrienne, our super-cool advocacy & organizing director, have always rocked. Likewise the super-efficient, always-cool Financial Jock. But in the last five months we've hired all these other super-cool people that I'll call by their titles unless I come up wtih a name for them -- a feisty and passionate Traveler who works with me, a gifted Vistaguy who writes awesomely and is one of those sort of, filtering personalities, if you know what I mean: stress goes in and peace comes out. He's a good match with me and the Traveler, who both stress a bit too much. Then we've got a frighteningly efficient JVC, a sweet and spunky Volunteer Manager, and an Office Manager who's totally sarcastic and nerdy and reminds me of 'Nuhurst, and I totally love her. I really like spending time with these people; lately we've all been saying that we need to hang out together outside of work, because as it is we're doing too much hanging out together INSIDE of work and, surprisingly enough, that cuts down on the amount of, you know, work that gets done. And as aforementioned, there's a lot of that work stuff to get done.
Aha, a doorbell! Off to familialize!