but time makes you bolder, even children get older…

when i first came home, i was shocked at how stressed americans were, and how crazy-busy my family was. how every day is a huge production.

obviously, my tolerance of family stress has shot up, though sometimes i think it can never be high enough. the punches still hurt, but i am learning to roll with ‘em.

here’s a graph i made of my summer. it’s silly. but i like graphs.

well. now that i got that out of my system.

today i worked on this term paper that was due yesterday, talked to my sister rachel, and got frustrated.

what most frustrates me is how i treat people when i am doing a paper like I am doing right now. i hate what it does to me, which doesn’t make any sense because a paper cannot be evil in itself, though some have approached that level. no, tis I that choose my attitude, tis I that loves myself and my agenda. this makes me want to run far, far away from grad school.

a man exposed himself to me in the coffee shop where I was writing today. i am not sure whether it was inadvertent or on purpose, but it freaked me out. it was, very, very traumatizing. that sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen in a coffee shop. is nothing sacred? is no place safe? i moved my things and sat elsewhere, and he left shortly that. it could have been accidental, but it’s hard for me to assume that when i just feel violated and angry. and i didn’t know what to do.. so i didn’t do anything. my dad said i should have gone straight to the management, even if it was accidental. but i couldn’t even figure out what had just happened.

then i got home and lost all patience. you know that you are out of patience when you don’t want to help someone who only has the use of one leg. i mean, what a b****! i took james for a walk to try to cool off and figure out why i felt like i was gonna explode.

this year i felt a lot of grief about being physically and emotionally at a distance from my family. i mean, i was in mexico, for goodness sake. i thought my mom was grieving–the whole emptying of her nest process. i realize, now that i’m home, that my mom really likes being at work again. maybe i have been the one who’s sad about change and growing up. i am starting to realize that at my age, there is a distance that’s healthy between you and your family. what that looks like, i haven’t figured out.

so my hometown doesn’t exactly feel like home. but neither does my Texas town, especially since i will leave it after this year, my senior year. for a while it bothered me that so many places felt like home and my heart felt all spread out in pieces… now i just want one place to feel like home, at all. it’s hard to be rootless, to share rooms and space with new people all the time, which is what i’ve done this year. i crave something of my own, something that belongs to me only. i have begun to think that nothing is really my own except the conversations i sometimes have with God. because no one else is really in that conversation, and He’s listening to me.

i like to have my own space, a place to think. i like simplicity … not having a bunch of things that i don’t need … it’s scary to think about going abroad again at some point and being in a hostel or host family and having that same total lack of space to mentally stretch out in. in mexico i lived in a teeny, awkward room full of furniture with a roommate who first tried to get me to move out, then decided i wasn’t so bad. it’s a horrid feeling: you are crowded everywhere by people, yet you feel alone. there’s not enough room for you anywhere, because there’s no space that belongs to just you at the house you live at, and if you go elsewhere you will probably have to rent the space by buying something like coffee or food. i suppose that desire for something of my own is why i am blogging right now.

but do i just run away from this, go rent somewhere for the last month here? or, stranger still, try to live with another family? all families have dynamics to which you must become accustomed. and along with my tolerance of stress shooting up, so has my attachment and need of my family. is it irrational to be afraid i will miss something?

good grief. God will sort me out. i suppose i might need a bit of sleep. goodnight, friends.

*post title from Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide.