I’m homesick, today, for the first time. Which given that I left Seattle in June, and have been on my own a week, isn’t so bad, I guess. What’s probably silly is what I’m homesick for, or rather, whom. I’m homesick for Phillip. I haven’t talked to him since graduation; he was gone, and I’m sure he’s taking a breather this summer from, well, life and me and everything else. But that’s going on three months, and I miss him.
I miss knowing mannerisms, and speech patterns, and gestures and when he was raising his voice for effect, and when he meant it.
I miss knowing where I belonged and stood and what my role was. Knowing my place.
I miss knowing the rules.
I’ll get that here, I know that. But until I get that, I have to deal with different egos and people and small sniping amongst them, and attitudes that are very different than what I am familiar with. I have to deal with a level of politics unprecedented, for me – I guess maybe I miss just having Phillip’s ego, and occasionally John, and no one else.
Or maybe most specifically, I just miss feeling somewhere safe. I have to decide who to trust, what to trust, who to listen to – so many things that I’ve forgotten about. Do I go with my instinct? Do I listen to people? What circumstances do I take to heart, and what do I ignore? Which way is up, and where is down?
Right now, I want to be curled in the corner of the CHID couch, quietly reading the latest issue of whatever, listening to the voices of the department and office swell and swirl around me, Phillip’s laughter a constant anchor in the background.