l os ing touch

i'm in no hurry, you go run and tell your friends i'm losing touch, fill their heads with rumors...

What does it mean to feel "yourself?" If it's to feel comfortable in your own skin - I haven't felt that way for a long, long time. It's always the same feeling, like something's struggling to escape from your shoulderblades, almost like there are wings lying half-asleep in your bones, waiting for you to realize that there's something else within you that you could use. "But", you say, "that's normal. It's supposed to be a sign of growing, maturing, and to feel settled at your age is odd."

Okay, that's probably true. I can live with that, and it's understandable. I can't live with this feeling though of not having a home. I haven't been in a single place from December/January of last year for more than 3 months that felt like home. When the cousins/relatives came for Christmas, it filled up our townhouse - changed the normal atmosphere, and...since they stayed for 2/3 weeks, it got normal, almost. And when they left, it was just ...odd. Our house is supposed to be full, and it's a reminder that once, we all did live together or near each other, and I think that we're more used to being together than apart. So that's December/January. February and March and April were readjusting months...but the problem is, you see, I never really thought of the townhouse as "home", it was always our xing jia - our new home. And...then in May, with beach week - that knocks out a week, and then 2 weeks later, I'm in Taiwan for 2 months. And in the meanwhile, we're back to our old house - but coming back to a different room, a different way of living than you're used to (I never realized how much I relied on Ride On in the last few months of senior year) - it's still not the same. And then to college. My dorm sure as hell doesn't feel like home, but it doesn't not feel like home either. Contradictions, contradictions. I don't understand this, because home is where your heart is - but, perhaps - maybe I'm just the Tin Man.

But home...I've spent so long trying to escape home, family, and pressure that I feel like in a way, this was bound to happen. School was my escape from home, home my escape from school...all I've ever wanted to do in a lot of ways was escape and be free, but looking back, I never once really knew what I was escaping to, just that I was getting out. Out of the frying pan, into the fire? A dandelion seed, adrift, I think, is what I said once, when I was trying to explain the feeling - and the more I think about it, the more it fits. I can't control where I'm going, and I don't even think I have the capability to, sometimes... Maybe I should just start asking, and thinking, where am I going? What am I doing? Waiting for Godot, that's what.

The one anchoring point and constant throughout the past few years have been my friends...and well...they're not here, and I'm not there. And it's so, so, hard, finding yourself and who you are, when you realize that parts of you have with other people for so long that you never knew they were even needed. I'm lost, and I still don't know where to find myself. And I don't understand why I can't seem to feel much anymore, except for when I'm around a few certain people.