Going home

As people started finishing their finals and packing up to head home, it occurred to me that I wasn't as excited to leave as everyone else. Most of my friends were full of impatient anticipation -- I sure didn't get the impression that anyone felt the least bit sad about the semester ending. I'm finally leaving. I can't wait to go home.

It's difficult to say whether their attitude was simply a response to the stress of finals (I don't think anyone can seriously say they like the finals part of college), but regardless, I found it a bit disheartening just how eager everyone was to leave.

To already be thinking I'm finally leaving after just the first semester is a bit sad, sure. But that second line, I can't wait to go home is what stung me.

I suppose it's only natural that people would rather be home than here; home is where we've spent the majority of our lives, and it's where our friends and family are (if only during break). But the thing is, while my friends continued to rave more and more about how excited they were to go home, I gradually realized that I might actually feel more at home here than in California.

I guess that says a lot about me, doesn't it.

But I will digress for a moment.

Over Thanksgiving, my sister pointed out that my mother had raised us to be independent; that meant learning to take care of our own problems, and first turning to either our peers or ourselves when the need arose. I can understand why: for someone as perceptive as her, I imagine it quickly became annoying to have to deal with her friends coming to her with their problems all the time. It was better to train us to become our own crisis-solvers than to spoil us with her own advice.

But I wonder if this upbringing affected how I develop friendships. In particular, I've noticed that I am remarkably whimsical about my attachments to people; it may not be hard for me to get attached, but given a little physical and temporal separation, my sense of attachment evaporates.

It's almost as if I only keep friends while they are useful to me -- once the situation disappears in which I had purportedly needed them, I don't see a reason to continue feeling attached.

I first noticed this on the last summer that I did CTY (which I wrote about before). But in a very disturbing turn of events, it may actually be happening for my own home.

In a way, I'm not that attached to my home anymore.

Well, shit.

That's why I felt so disheartened when my friends kept telling me I'm finally leaving. I can't wait to go home. It wasn't because I felt sorry that they hadn't enjoyed their first semester, but because I was so disgusted with myself.

Is three months all it takes for me to start making some other place my home? 

If so, something tells me I have much reason to be concerned.