Home.

Feeling more and more homesick everyday.

I really don't do well with change, but when change has become so frequent and in large doses... it's almost become the norm...
I guess I just want to go someplace familiar.  Someplace that I've known for more than 4 months. Someplace I can call home.

That is why I am so serious about this roadtrip idea.
I don't care if I have to drive 4,000 miles by myself.
If it will take me to a place where I belong, and the people that I love, and have loved for so long... it will all be worth it.
It makes me really upset because I don't feel like I am allowed to go through this withdrawal process. I don't feel like I've been allowed to cope properly. Everytime I mention the thought of going "home" or missing "home" to my mom (which I guess has only happened once or twice, because I've learned not to say what I'm really thinking in this aspect), all I get is a glare or something along the lines of "your home is now San Mateo".
I don't think this is fair. I know home is "where the heart is"... well maybe my heart is stuck in the midwest with everything I've ever known. I had a whole 5 days after getting off of tour to say goodbye to the friends, family, and city that I've known for over half my life.
It caused me to leave not really understanding what was taking place.
It felt as though I was just embarking on a great adventure, a vacation have you, and that I would be returning very, very soon.
Then reality hits, and vacation turns into displacement.
I can still picture the very last time I drove down my 1853 Sugar Creek Trail driveway.
I remember taking in everything around me.The scent of an Indiana August and a perfectly cloudless day.
I knew I wouldn't want to forget this, but until recently I did not realize why.

It never sunk in that breathing in my last summer air of Indiana would also be breathing in all my memories that are still so alive in my head.
It never sunk in that as I was saying goodbye to my childhood house, I was saying goodbye to my childhood.
Shelbey wrote gave me a letter the day I left and one place she wrote,
"The number one thing that I didn't put in the scrapbook was what I really think when I think of you. You remind me everyday of my childhood, and I never want to lose that. I always want to remember how carefree and weird I was. I want to remember how much fun and excitement I had. When I tell Lauren the only thing I was truly afraid of about graduating, it was the fact that I had to say goodbye to my childhood. The one person that can remind me of it with every picture, every possession, every hug, every smile, and every tear... is you..."
I miss her so much. She knows me. Everything about me and she still loves me. She was there the day Ben died. She was there all the times I came over and fell asleep crying in her bed. She called me when Abby died, when Kyle died.  The last moment in my memory from that drive down my driveway was looking over at her house, the house that held 10 years of friendship. The house that held so many secrets, wounds, and birthday parties. The house that became my second home.

People are getting more and more excited about going home from Christmas and the truth is, I'm getting more and more depressed. It's easier to not think about reality being at school, which is a place that is an adjustment for everyone. 

Ryan didn't mean to upset me, but he mentioned the other day in regards to the fact that I have to stay here over Interterm, something along the lines of "well don't you like it better here anyway? I mean it's probably more familiar th

an your new home." It's true. 

Thanksgiving even helped mask it as well. We went to my cousins' house... like we do every year. 

This will be the first Christmas where we don't end up in Chicago.  

I'm really struggling here.

I know I'm supposed to be here, but it doesn't hide the fact that it's so hard.

I just want to go home.