A Pathetic Introduction

I am bored. I live in a city far away from my family. I left home over two years ago after college. I thought I didn't want to stay in a cornfield. I thought I wanted to see the world. I thought I wanted to make it on my own. And I was right. For a minute.

I've lived in this town for going on three years. The first year was fun. I had a handful of friends, a job that barely paid the rent, and I learned to be a grown up. I did all the things that I previously wondered how my parents managed to do. I paid my taxes. I found a doctor. I set up my utilities and bought furniture. Ok, fine, I didn't actually buy furniture. I'm still using the stuff I had in college. But everything else really did happen. Any day now I'll have real furniture.

Last night I had what some might consider an anxiety attack coupled with PMS and a plague of sadness. This is the first time (ok, second time, but whose counting...) that this has happened, and I'm worried it may lead to depression, despite my attempts to tell myself that it is a healthy expression of bottled up emotions. The scene looked something like this: me, rocking back and forth on my couch, hair a mess, mascara running, choking out to God that I want to go home. And then there was the crying. I happen to catch my reflection for a second while the cry was occurring and it temporarily cracked me up. It was hideous. I had the bulbous red nose, pale face, shiny streaks of black running down my cheeks to meet up with the streams of snot moistening my upper lip. I'm an ugly crier. Which was, in the midst of my temporarily insane laughter, the thought that brought me back to tears. No one loves the ugly crier. I am, obviously, despite all the evidence to the contrary, at this particular moment, irrevocably unlovable.

Keep in mind here, I was suffering from PMS. Drama akin to that of an angst-filled confused goth teen is to be expected. Don't judge.

A few hours later, after several long and passionate, gut churning talks with absolutely no one, I calmed down and fell asleep. Today I feel fine, if still a little lonely.

I don't know what came over me last night. Raise your hand if you know this is a lie. When I moved from the cornfields to the new big city, I left behind my family. At the time, I thought this was a GREAT idea. Granted, I loved my family, but I was the child that was destined for something else. I remember my mom even casually mentioning one day at dinner that I would be the child that would skip town as soon as I had my degree in my hands and never look back. At the time I couldn't fathom believing her, but her prophesy was right. I moved away exactly one week after graduation.

It turns out that the people I left are the people I need. I have never loved my family so much as I love them now, at this very minute. Each day I spend being on my own makes me wish I had them here to smother me and drive me crazy and annoy the hell out of me. I'm jealous that my sister has to go on double dates with my parents. I'm raked with sadness when I call my mom and she is out with "the family." I don't remind her that I'm part of the family too. My dad lays out at the pool with my little sister and her boyfriend. I want that to be me, and honestly, what sane 20-something wants to have a pool party with their dad?

My family members are the best people ever. My sisters and I can laugh for hours. And not just a polite chuckle. When we get together we laugh from the gut. We laugh so hard that sounds don't come out. People outside my family don't understand it. Most think we are weird. This would be true.

So in conclusion, I'm sad because I am still living in this expensive, lonely, cold and anonymous city and I LONG for home. I long for the cornfields and the laughter and the built-in-friends that still live there and for native English speaking fast food employees. I have nine months left on my awful lease here in this city. In nine months and one day I will be back where I belong.