Catch Me

When I allow myself to search the depths of my heart and linger on some of the sadness that lies there, this is what I find:

"Things are different. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I think about all the things that haven't happened yet. Leaving my family for the city, graduating college, moving to Seattle, searching for new friends, entering a new relationship, marrying off my brother. Instead, I sit in a time where things are familiar. My heart refuses to accept the reality of my life now; it still yearns for the comfort of my childhood home, the ease of no responsibility, the simplicity of first love, the stability of obeying parental orders. As an adult, I supposedly have more freedom, but I'm still trapped in a place to which I can't return, trapped in a fantasy of time gone by.

I'm not sure at what point time seemed to stop for me or when I started dipping my metal present into the gold lacquer of the past just to see it glitter again, but I do know that the present is laced with my memories -- some thick and intricate, others only fleeting as though a few curls of smoke have gotten tangled in my hair. I also know this: I am afraid to move forward in my life due to unforeseen consequences of past decisions. Did I want to move to Seattle? Yeah, sure. But the outcome of a making a decision that seemed to take only a few minutes has been far reaching and brutally affecting. Did I think I'd stay here beyond grad school? No way. And further, I didn't think I'd meet someone. Is he more important than my family? Sometimes. Do I want to move back to Green Bay? No. Yes. Maybe. Do I miss my family? Terribly. I miss them more than I ever thought possible. I miss them as though the blood is missing from my veins -- as if I no longer have life pumping through me without them. I miss them because I can't dull the loneliness or fill the hold that their absence creates. I pretend to be fine, and many times, that is enough to get me through my days which quickly become my life. But when the feeling of their distance creeps up on me, there is no telling when the pain will subside."