Everything familiar...

One of my favorite things to do is to re-read old journal entries. I usually find them quirky and odd, but they always fascinate me because I get to see how much I've truly changed and grown over the years. I've been rather slack in keeping a good journal this past year and a half, so the entries I have written are slightly scattered. During that time, however, I guess I figured that keeping some sort of documentation was important, so most of the entries have taken down at least the important events or milestones of my life.

Entry October 11, 2010 reads, "Believe it or not, I attempt to have a social life!" ... as though my journal is a comprehending being that would actually care about my acclaimed 'social life'. You see, I've never been the type to address my journal. "Dear diary, today I..." Instead, words just pop in my mind and I write them down as they happen. Many a times they're written in haste with a burst of emotion. This entry wasn't really written with a burst of emotion. It was just trying to commemorate the important event of asking Zach Peterson to a high school girl's choice dance.

November 14, 2010 entry is about 5 pages long and it serves as a really long letter to all of the people in my life at the time, each one of them addressed as "you". I don't use a single name once. I had a hard time figuring that one out. But it's now one of my favorite entries to read, because I read it over and over again trying to figure out when I change to a new person, and what I mean by all the pronouns I use. It's very passionate, too, so I find it fascinating to catch a glimpse of what was going on in my head at the time. Amusing.

After spending quite a bit of time reading my past journal entries, I stumbled upon possibly my favorite excerpt, and it led to the inspiration for the rest of this blog. As much as I enjoy being home, I cannot ignore the home that's awaiting me 2000 miles away. Everything here is familiar - both physically and relationally: friendships, old ties, even the buildings and roads. And it's nice - it's comfortable. But I can't quite wait to go back to New York. I can't wait to see the friends I've made and begin classes again, to stay in the temporary home that has become so familiar. I can't wait to jump back into the diverse culture and a different way of living. And aside from the obvious traits of the city that I miss, there is something in me that's now rooted there. The excerpt from my entry reads,

"I've come to realize that we are as passionately involved with this city as it is with us. We not only think, dream, live and breathe it, but we experience and change it as we go."

New York wouldn't be what it is without the dreams that feed its endless energy. We fuel the city with the diversity and life that it thrives upon. The same culture we all love and experience exists because of us - all of us. It's a little like a social contract, the relationship that one has with New York. It promises us culture, diversity, hope, success and failure; and we promise it dreams and creativity, life and death, love and hate. And in this social contract, we find the flaws of the city that we long to change. The flaws of the city that mirror the flaws within ourselves, and we're constantly changing and experiencing the antagonism between the two. And it's almost time to leave everything familiar and return to the new home and the new life that the city has begun to craft for me. I can hardly wait. ♥

-Em

"Distance is as good a medicine as any"

Going back to New York in: 11 days