There is something to be said for how a home and a family - or community of people - hold identity, embody identity. I don't know that I actually completely agree with these thoughts, but....I find myself thinking over and over that it will feel so good to be home and around my family and friends, and be reminded of who I am.

Being in this city is amazing. My life is never boring and I honestly barely know what crazy event will take place next. But, in all the craziness, I can feel myself fading a bit.

But I suppose it's natural, after all. To live and succeed in a place requires adaptation. But with adaptation comes some loss.

Who is this girl that goes clubbing until 5am and smokes the occasional cigarette and has indecent love escapades and a bottle of vodka in the pantry? I just don't quite recognize her.

Valley Center. Blue skies, dirt roads, orange groves. Cups of coffee outside with the sunset and the humming birds and old British mystery movies before bed. I want to belong to this life again.

And here is another thought- forgive the whininess, please:
Lately, I just want things to be simple - again? - and I want to feel happy. I guess happiness is something you move towards and build at, not something you just get. I constantly feel like I just want someone to give me happiness, to just hand it to me. But I guess I know that I need to start making better choices and having the right mindset. I don't want to want things and people that I can't or shouldn't have. I don't want to ache because I want something that I know I shouldn't. I want to erase all the relationships I've had that have made little holes in me... all the bad decisions and actions... because even though I've learned from them, it still hurts when they come up in the reel of my thoughts and those feelings flood back. Pandora's Box is hell, man.

"It is June. I am tired of being brave." -Anne Sexton

"and
yell as far as I can, I cannot leave this place, for
for me it is the dearest and the worst,
it is life nearest to life which is
life lost: it is my place where
I must stand and fail,
calling attention with tears
to the branches not lofting
boughs into space, to the barren
air that holds the world that was my world"

-A.R. Ammons

How unnerving that the things I thought were most tiresome have turned out to be closest to my heart, or whatever it is that's pumping life inside of me. (This may also be true of people.) I want to absolutely take prisoner the colors and smells and whole atmosphere of this place that is home. Here I am an eager kid, all packed a week early and I'm sitting on my bed distractedly while Spain just quietly lives all around me. And I will hate how I wanted so badly to just get the hell out of this country, I know it. I will miss the walking, talking, living that was this life in Barcelona. But I did hold it against my bones, if nothing else. And now I am letting it go. If you don't bend, you break, you know?