A First Time for Everything

So, for many a drunken rant, I have made fun of people who kept blogs. I found it completely and utterly weird that so many people wanted other people to know what they were feeling, how they were feeling, when they were feeling it, and why they were feeling a certain way. I guess in a way, I'm still a bit skeptical about why this is necessary (I feel like I let my thoughts be known fairly well in the flesh), but perhaps it's the softness that creeps into your body the older you get that gives you bits of hope that maybe somebody will read your thoughts and laugh - either out of pity or concordance - and that a record of your wit should prevail on in the netherworld of the internet even if you perhaps do not.

As I sit and write this particular post, I cannot help but let my mind wander to the idiosyncrasies of this place we call "home." I wonder if perhaps we miss the permanence and simplicity of our youth to know that no matter what things were, we could give them a label easily when we were younger - "This is my house. This is my room. These are my friends. This is how I feel." Perhaps the greatest and worst tool college instills in you is a feeling of fluidity - we begin to see life and ourselves much like water- adaptable, powerful, and versatile, yet utterly bland, amorphous, and indistinguishable at times. This numbness that crept into you without even the realization that it was there came somewhere between recognizing your SAT scores don't matter at all and then realizing you are one of many people who are privy to the same guilty pleasures - hedonistic or intellectual - as everyone else. It's wonderful to realize there's a niche for you everywhere - people you can talk heady stuff with and people that will drink as much as you and perhaps embarrass themselves as well. But it also makes you realize that you can create that environment in many places and the thought of home starts to dissipate. I say this not to reiterate the message of "Garden State" (oh dramedy movies with a soundtrack, how you seduce us all), but more to wonder when we start to feel like the new life we are creating is our own, and not an escape/replication from our previous one. Does it take marriage, kids, or simply a certain amount of time away before you begin to sever ties with what life once was, and now what it is. When do we lose the nostalgia for the past and gain the ambition for the future? At 22, it seems weird that I am so nostalgic, yet I don't feel I'm alone. Therefore it makes me even more confused to think that I am happy to be home, yet can't really define what home is anymore. I shall think about it more this summer.