Dear Claustrophobic,
This morning the walls began closing in on me; I was afraid I'd be encased by plaster.
Everything about my family, my high school, my friends is so achingly familiar that the word "home" has taken an extended meaning. The cracked side walk where I used to stop to collect pieces of concrete while walking with my mother as a child, is home. The back table of Tim Horton's beside the window, where we teenage hooligans talk far too loudly and stay far too long, is home. My friends copy of The Poisonwood Bible on the bookshelf across from my bed, a novel I have yet to read but at which I gaze softly at as I fall asleep, is home.
The issue at hand is that I am so accustomed to living like this, that I'm terrified of becoming a rare tropical bird who's niche is ripped away from her when I go to university; I don't want to flutter and flounder as a student only to try to fly my way home to a place that no longer exists. Let me explain: as much as I could possibly want to return to "home", it is a temporal destination. Were I to stay here next year, the aspects that make home great would not be the same. My friends would be working or at university, I would not be at school enjoying a first period spare, and I probably would feel very, very lonely.
Perhaps that's why leaving home is such a touchy subject for me right now. My family will always be supportive, and friends will come and go but the great ones will always stay, but well, I don't know who I will be when I come home.
So this morning I felt cornered by the realization that I would be losing my room to my brother next year, but mostly by the fact that even my physical definition of home is changing.
Home is where the heart is,
arctic hipster
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