It is 10:30pm, and I am dreadfully tired and not tired at all. Thoughts refuse to form in any sort of coherence, words flying around like leaves scattered in a breeze, but my fingers pluck them out and down with ease. Split in two, I at once want to sleep, to sleep for weeks, and to madly push through all that needs to be done in a single fell swoop. I want to go out, expereince the people around me and life, and curl under my blanket until dawn breaks over the tips of the trees surrounding my bed and room.
The split life is everything right now – the immediate of where I am, the reality of coming home and back to the place I grew up, where everyone has embraced my casual attitude. Santa Cruz time, Santa Cruz casual – don’t bring your East Coast attitude here. But at the same time, my East Coast life hasn’t stopped, hasn’t really even paused, and what was at one point just a gentle reminder of the life I have now became the lifeline holding me together and on through an increasingly difficult experience. I look forward, now, to going home, and that has shifted in my head to mean things like my bed, my cats, the people physically in my life in Albany. But I know once I am there, as happy as I will be in that moment, it will be the echo of arriving at San Jose International Airport, and in a few days I will begin to ache, again, for the Left Coast life.