Probably Time To Sleep, Dear

I think it's because I am exhausted... but that seems to be a good condition for near or sub-levels thoughts coming forth in bursts of unprecedented confusion.

I feel like Santa Barbara isn't real. Well, obviously, it is. But I feel like everything besides myself... that is, everyone I know, everything I did that didn't carry over (I can bagpipe-carried over. peet's habit-not)... it feels like it happened to a character in a book. It will be very strange to find that I am that character and I have this whole life on the other side of the world where the only missing piece is... me. I mean, in terms of having a whole life set up, and I have just been plucked out of that character's life, and put over here in Europe with one suitcase and a laptop.

I have grown more as a person here that at any other time in my life. I don't want to embrace the sedentary sort of ideology of adulthood, but I feel more adult than I ever have before. And it is a deep transition, not just in habits or responsibilities, though certainly those helped...

And it's not complete. People grow all the time. But I feel like somehow I have developed as a person more in the past few months than ever before, and in a more complete, rounded way. My perspectives have altered, my perceptions have opened... it makes me want more, to see more, know more, travel more... I have always wanted that, but now that I am doing it, I realize it is in fact a wonderful thing. And vacationing is not like living somewhere, even if it is just for a couple months. And I think none of this would have happened so fully, so richly, or so efficiently, if at all, if I had not been so wholly alone.

I think I will go back and fall right back into accepting most of my old life... but I feel a whole new practicality. And being torn from so many of my favourite hobbies and creative endeavours, opportunities for legitimate advancement even, and being in this world where my only obligations are a couple essays and experiencing as much as possible, I am most excited to start doing all the things I have always wanted to. I have been waiting, resting, thinking, adapting, but as my summer (which has really lasted half the year) draws to a close... it is time for action.

As much as some thing have changed, I actually feel more like myself than I have since I left home. I have had time to delve into all the different selves and memories and passions that comprise me and even if taking action is limited right now, I have explored them in consideration... (I have no idea if that makes sense outside my mind. Oh heavens.). I feel like coming here has only helped to fill in blank spots in a pre-existing mould, so rather than morphing or changing, I have just grown, filling out as a person in just the right way that I am meant to... I suppose that gets into fate and all sorts of existential ramblings and it's certainly a matter of perspective, but regardless or cause, effect, fate, meaning, or lack of it... that is how I feel.

I love being here so very much, but I know I have to go back. It will be strange seeing all my family and friends in person again, because they feel like sitcom characters I sometimes talk to online or on the phone. Not real people. Alright, I know I'm tired, so it's really not as dramatic as I might be making it or as long-winded per se, but these are still things I'm thinking about. And I can't wait to go back home and see it with fresh eyes... I wonder what I will think...