The comfort of words.

I haven't blogged in quite some time. Ah, how many blog posts have I started out with such a similar sentence?

Blogging is strange to me. I feel vain when I type in this small box and then click the "Publish" button with the belief that someone will find my inner thoughts interesting.

Tonight though I write for myself. Words are my comfort. They're a warm blanket I can pull around my shoulders when I have no one to offer a hug. A friend gave me a strange look when I admitted that sometimes I leave books in my bed while I sleep. The sturdy rectangles are a constant presence that offer comfort. When you move as much as I do, you have to find wholeness without the constant of others. Words are just one small way I remind myself of who I am, one way I find comfort on lonely nights far away from loved ones.

The main reason I'm typing this entry is to feel my fingers on the keys, hear the clacking of keys. We find comfort where we can. 

Twenty-Three.

Today I am 23 and I look old.

That's somewhat of a lie because I still look 16 but to my eyes I look weary. Perhaps it's this city, the stress of the unknown.
22 was an eventful year. I moved to a cold city by a lake, fell in love, had my heart broken, earned my master's degree, moved to another cold city on an island, became a maid of honor, applied for over 70 jobs, questioned myself, made new friends and decided that life could be started all over again.

Oh my. What could 23 bring?

Star-Shaped Girl.

There’s a folder on my computer titled “blogs.” The majority of these Word documents have not been viewed by anyone other than myself. In fact, we’ll see if this specific “Document1” reaches the Internet.

There are some things that I believe are too personal to be typed out for all to see. Then again, some blogs don’t make the cut because I feel they might be viewed as repetitive. Such as the subject of “home.”

The “Wordle” to the right of these blog posts will show you that the word “home” is used often on the site. I’ve been homesick the last few days for a place that doesn’t exist. I love my parents, but their house is no longer my home. Dallas is not even home. The entire Southern region of the United States could be considered home but it has to encompass D.C. as well.

I told my room mate Jane today that the way to tell if I am homesick is if country music is pouring out of the cracks that surround my bedroom door. Today it was one song in particular, Miranda Lambert’s “The House That Built Me.” Well, there was no one house that built me. There is a combination of homes that interweave their way into my dreams until my older self is rambling the hallways of the house on the hill, the house without the front door, the house on Cedar. All the houses that my family has lived in are accompanied by a descriptor. You throw that one extra word in and my family members nod in understanding. No one else can understand.

Some people are made up largely of one home. I don’t understand these people, but a large part of me envies them. They have a bedroom in the house that their parents live in where they keep their childhood and teenage memories.

It’s not a house that I am homesick for or even a city. It’s an entire state, a certain type of people, the food that brings back memories and the weather. Ah, how I miss the weather. Rain, a good rainstorm would be perfect right now. Or the kind of night where you can walk outside without a jacket because the heat hangs in the air like a blanket encasing the stars.

Home can’t be wrapped up in one sentence. It’s the people I love. I don’t ache for a certain city limits or the confines of four walls but I still ache. Perhaps this widespread homesickness is the reason why I am on a constant search of a home for myself. I sleep on a rented bed and borrowed bedding. While I know home is not things, I surround myself with books; find them wedged in between the sheets, perched precariously on tables, hiding under the bed. Books remind me of who I am. The tortilla chips, salsa and country gravy sitting in my pantry remind me of who I am. The photos of friends and families hanging on my wall remind me of who I am.

Home is who you are. Home is remembering who you are and resting in that knowledge. Homesickness for me is the feeling of not quite fitting somewhere, a square peg in a round hole. Having a home is having the knowledge that there’s somewhere you belong. But when your bed is constantly changing and you don’t know where you’ll be sleeping in the next few months, your home becomes yourself.

Because though I miss Texas, I miss family, I miss the district, I miss friends, I know that when I go back to visit those places I find I don’t quite fit anymore. Perhaps my shape is constantly changing and soon I’ll be a star – unable to fit into any sort of manufactured spot. 

One day, I will have a home. 

It's that time of year again.

My friends keep looking at me in amazement and saying things like “I wish I could pack up and move like you do!” They seem in awe of my fearlessness and ability to place as many possessions as possible into boxes and suitcases to move to a new city. Fearless, yeah, that’s me.

And all I want to say, all I want to scream, is “You can! Yes, you can!”

I’ve been laying in bed for the past 10 minutes staring at my duvet cover that’s piled atop me. There’s a trail of blue flowers that seems to stretch endlessly as it crawls over a hill made by the down comforter. The flowers directly in front of me are the only thing in focus, sans contacts or glasses the rest of the world is fuzzy. And the morning light that pushes its way through my curtains makes my rectangle box of a room surreal. I don’t know what kind of flower it is, perhaps a daisy, but then again it doesn’t really look like a daisy.

And when I think of daisies, I always think of “You’ve Got Mail” and how they are Kathleen Kelly’s favorite flower because they seem so friendly. And how I wish someone would show up at my door when I’m sick with a handful of white, friendly flowers. And then I think how life is not like “You’ve Got Mail” at all.

What I’m trying to say with all this rambling is, life is unexpected.

At least, I think that’s what I’m trying to say.

The truth is, right now life seems rather empty. And all I want to do is close my eyes, close out the never-ending trail of blue flowers and go back to sleep. But I can’t. I have to get out of bed, pack up those boxes and go to the grocery store. For all those people who seem to think I’m adventurous for moving so often, you should know that I spend most of my life in fear.

I am so scared and unsure of what the future holds and the mountain of loan bills I see when I close my eyes make me want to stay in this bed even longer. But I decided a long time ago (and by long time ago I mean a few months) that I wouldn’t let fear determine my life. This means that yes, you too can chase your dreams no matter how wild or crazy they seem to others around you. This means you can take a chance as well, forget all the “reasoning” that holds you back.

The best way to conquer fear is to jump directly in. Face forward, belly flop.

So I’ll climb out of bed in about another 20 minutes or so.