from home
this one is extra scattered. oops.
There was a time in my life where I would welcome the holidays like a warm embrace. Despite my love for the holiday, I’ve always preferred the sad Christmas anthems (River, Blue Christmas, Please Come Home For Christmas, etc etc). I would listen to Darlene Love’s “Christmas” year-round, counting the days to the twenty-fifth of December. Then, I could distract myself with consumption: hot chocolate, cookies, shopping. Sometimes I wish I could return to that state of blissful ignorance. To go back before I took the “red” pill. It's painful, going back knowing what I know now.
In true Hallmark fashion, I am back in my small town from my home in the big city. The second thing my mother said to me was that I looked smaller. Never mind the oversized sweatshirt I wore. She said, “you look smaller, while I’m getting bigger.” I told her about my injury in October. I was in an awkward cast for a month. She said that her decade-old wounds were worse. The silent competition eats me alive. Conversations constantly turning inward, so that there is only really one person in the room. Sometimes I catch myself doing the same thing in my day to day conversations. I wonder if stuff like that is truly hereditary, or if my own self-awareness can prevent me from ending up the same.
After a two-month long blockage, I’ve been writing again. A lot. It’s almost the only way I can be here without feeling insane, honestly. Being home is disorienting. I try to remind myself that this was once a place where I used to get a large Diet Coke for four quarters, a nickel, and two pennies. Or that I used to sit on the top of that hill almost every day with blankets and my closest friends to pass the long days.
But I hardly know those things anymore. I’m in a small town of familiar places and faces, yet I feel like I’m a visitor in a foreign country. It’s some uncanny valley shit; everything is so different, but nothing really changed at all. I’m not sure I could call this home, but how else could I acknowledge how it molded me, by chewing me up and spitting me out?
It makes me wonder if I should visit more, despite how much it hurts. I would step on a pile of rusty nails if it guaranteed creative inspiration. My feet would ache with every step forward, but I would smile through the pain, knowing what good would come of it. But does suffering really equate good art? I know I’m not the first to ask this. The words feel silly coming from me.
My second night here was a drunken catch-up with old friends. They introduced me to all the American delicacies I’ve been missing in my time up north, which induced the gnarliest hangover of my life. Never again. There’s nothing quite like picking up where you left off like this. It’s almost like a first date. I sipped on a boxed cocktail as I learned about their new lives scattered across the Midwest. I felt uncomfortable, having so much love for these people, but not quite sure what to do with it.
Spending time with my family is just as bittersweet. My younger sister towers over me now. I see so much of myself in her, but I know nothing about her. I’m projecting. It’s hard not to. I’m trying to make up for lost time and disfunction. She hates it, I think. Yesterday I learned she likes her steak rare and has a 125 day DuoLingo streak. She doesn’t really like talking to me though. Thirteen year olds can smell desperation.
Time moves so much slower here. I’ve been watching movies to pass the long days. Yesterday I watched Licorice Pizza, a movie I’ve been holding off on because, well, you know. As much as I’d like to avoid it, it’s hard to talk about this movie without Alana’s moral ambiguity, the impetus of the film. Her struggle to “get her shit together” is reflected in all of her relationships with men. Her attraction to Gary is a clear representation of her inner struggle between holding on to her own youth and growing up. In your twenties, nothing is more attractive than your own youth, especially as a woman. I don’t want to turn my Substack into a long-winded Letterboxd review, but I can’t stop thinking about it. As a chronic obsessor and delusional crush-haver. Of course she’s a Sagittarius.
Thanks for reading these. I’m hoping to annoy you all with more in the new year.
What I’m listening to: Somethin’ Stupid by Frank and Nancy Sinatra. Don’t mind me, I’m yearning!
What I’m watching: Alternating between Yorgos Lanthimos’s and PTA’s catalogues.
What I’m reading: Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith. I’m one book from finishing my Goodreads goal.
What I’m drinking: Cappuccinos with cinnamon.