Coming Home...(more S.O.C)

Today is my second day in Merced, though it still feels unreal.

I've been psyching myself up for this semester to begin, but I'm not sure I feel it just yet. I've finished my first assignment of the semester, which is comforting.

I still miss my hometown, and my Shayne, but those are things for another time. Thinking about them now, mourning what I don't have is senseless torture.

I haven't slept yet, haven't been able to. I've been sharing a room with Jake, since his mother's temporarily occupying mine. I don't mind. I didn't even need to sleep last night, so the lack of a bed to claim as my own didn't bother me like it had in previous nights. The backwards view from his desk isn't so bad either. Sleeping in another person's room is awkward and fucking foreign for me, but it could be worse I guess- and the company's not awful, so I shouldn't be complaining really.

This isn't one of those blogs where I answer a question, or where I make a resolution. I don't feel like I posses any real clarity here. I think in this case, I'm just writing to work something out within myself.

For some reason, halfway through this blog, I walked down stairs. The heater was humming in the background, adjusting the chilly morning air to something more hospitable. I could see the barest hint of dawn under the curtains, peeking around the blinds, pushing in through the horizontal slats covering Jake's bedroom window.

And out of nowhere, I had the urge to go grab a cup of oj,and just stand in my kitchen watching the sun rise. There were many times I did that in days gone by, all of which are associated with one fuzzy memory.

When I think about those times, I smile, and reflexively reach back into the archives to treasure those early mornings. As if testing its reality, I delicately run a finger over that mental file, brushing off the dust. It should be more of a wince, but it's a crooked, half-smile that I have to repress upon revisiting those memories.

I'm not the same 20-year-old-girl that I was back then, lying on my roomie's plush white couch and listening to-- what was it we were playing? I forget. Those hazy sunrises aren't lost to time as far as I'm concerned. But I'm happy to think back to them in the context of who I am, and how far I've gown past them.

Eventhough it's meant loss, I've grown up a lot in such a short time.
I don't use that term as a matter of finality, where 'grown up' is an end. In my mind, life is evolving, ending only with death
But I do feel like something within me has changed, progressed, and for that I am grateful.