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And I hope when I get old I won't sit around thinkin' about it,

But I probably will.

Glory days. Shit.

I'm not terrified of moving somewhere else. Maybe eventually it'll hit me what it means to leave this behind for a couple years. Or longer. But I wasn't all that scared to move to Memphis. I didn't cry when my parents left, even though I felt completely disoriented and sort of lost. Beneath that was the confidence that this was where I needed to be, above all.

I don't think I've ever really been homesick...I'm sure if/when I go to Europe (Italy this summer, hopefully!) I'll get homesick for America. But even when I first came to CBU, I never felt homesick. Is this what people are afraid of when moving somewhere new--this homesickness? I'm excited. To be honest, sometimes I feel a little home-less now. This house doesn't feel as much like home as the apartments of the last few years have. Sometimes I wonder if I'll drive by it in a few years and...I wonder what I'll feel. Sometimes I wonder if I'll look back on it as an asylum.

I may be homesick for Memphis--I can't even describe the memories that live here. I've grown up here, in these streets, more than I've ever grown. The feeling of crossing the bridge is coming home. There's been a lot of screaming fun and also heartache in this city. You have to have both of those to appreciate and recognize the other one. I have felt almost everything there is possible to feel here in this city. At times, it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull, and cut a six-inch valley in the middle of my soul. I think that's how you know you have really lived. It's how you know you haven't stayed too safe--if you've made some choices that have brought on a lot of pain. So of course I'll miss it.

I usually don't talk about specific details of my personal life on this blog. It's all sort of distanced, in a way, even though it's definitely all sincere. But here's something: I unfriended the person I've been writing about for a little bit. On Facebook. It was a big deal as I sat on my bed, with the mouse hovered over the "Ok" button. "Are you sure you want to unfriend..." I want the best things for him. But I also want the best for me. I had to. I had a moment where my heart was beating really fast, which is how it began, I guess. It was like when you're daring yourself to jump off some giant rock somewhere into the water. We've all done that. Anyway, I was in a great mood for the rest of the day, like I had just cut myself free of something that was drowning me.