Monday, December 21, 2009

It is both very difficult, and very easy to live with people who have known you your entire life. I deal with this paradox every time I come home. It's wonderful in some ways. I slip back in with a beautiful ease, happy to be with people who have known me so intimately and so long. There's nothing like family, really. The hard part is trying to fit the parts of you that have changed and grown back into the comforting old role... It's painful and irritating because no matter what you do, things will never be like they were. You are different. They are different. My thirteen year old brother (who is now taller than I am) picked me right up off the floor when I hugged him hello.

I am looking forward to Christmas. A break is nice, although I feel like I've gone and left my brain at school.

3 comments:

Bruce Johnson said...

There are holidays as an adult and holidays as children. They are totally different, with different meanings. And the awkward time in-between is the worst.

Anonymous said...

Your brain might be at school, but your heart is at home! Happy Christmas and New Year...

Chicago Ant reporting from wet, sleet-filled shores of Lake Michigan.

Jenni said...

I felt exactly the same way when I got home after Guilford. Oddly enough it's not so bad this time. Some things still need to be adjusted... like how in the past I always gave in during arguments with my parents, but now I'm almost as stubborn as they are. Oops. But now it's tolerable.

Also, I was going to see a few old friends this evening. (Now I'm not, cause the roads are beginning to ice and the snow is sticking)But thinking about it, I realized I still thought of them as they were a couple of years back. And I do the same with my cousins. It was odd to suddenly realize that they've all changed as much as I have.