"[I]n a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.” - Margaret Atwood

Bleh. Here's some real that I've been avoiding addressing.

I'm having a bit of trouble readjusting to life back here. It is a strange sensation to be back in a place that you call 'home', when it hasn't been your home for many months.

I am trying to deal with what feels like a very awkward graft. Or a slightly ill-fitting prosthesis. Somehow it doesn't quite fit. Parts of me have changed. Friends and family have changed. This is called life. The difference, the shocking difference, is that under regular circumstances, I would be here, and it wouldn't be so damned noticeable. As the above quote illustrates, it's easier to not notice when change is happening around you, slowly and gradually. Now, I feel as though I've been dropped into the boiling water and it's shocking.

At the same time, some things are overwhelmingly the same. It's a very strange dychotomy: changed and unchanged, all under one roof. Literally. For instance, the bottom level of the house has had a massive facelift. But my room remains exactly the same, right down to the Spongebob calendar on my bulletin board. To use a tired old cliche, living away from home for the first time has given me the opportunity to spread my wings. Only now I'm exactly back where I was to begin with. My understanding of each of my parents has shifted, as well as my relationship with my sister. But they all jive and I'm trying to find my place again. I don't mean to suggest that I'm unhappy, I'm just weirded out.

I resent being home, and yet I am delighted by being home. This morning I hung out with some really amazing people. It made me so happy to see them again, to enjoy their company and to remember how thankful I am that I get to be part of that particular group. To be able to drive to Brea's because I feel like it, or to sit across the table from John and laugh until we have both embarrassed ourself beyond repair. I cherish that. And yet, sometimes I sit here and ask myself why the hell I'm back; I become disatisfied and annoyed.

I'm told that it's normal to feel displaced, but while it's comforting to know that I'm normal, that knowledge doesn't help to remedy.

So, maybe it will take a week or a month. But I know sooner or later I will get back to my old self. I don't think I will ever not be awkward, but at least it will be an awkward that I can deal with.

OK. Done.