all these places feel like home

i know i said i was going to post pictures of the halloween party and i am, just not right now. sorry.

instead i'm going to talk about my trip to elmira (my alma mater) this past weekend. i went to visit one of my best friends, caryn (i don't know if you read this, but hi anyway), who is in her senior year. plus all the other crazy-ass-dancer-hos that i love and miss. it wasn't a super exciting visit as far as events go, but it was a great weekend with movies, dancing, chilling and even a lunch date with sara. =) excitement is over-rated anyway. i've found that some of the best days are those in which nothing important happens. they give you time to actually stop and realize how lucky you are.

something else i realized while at e.c. this time was that it isn't weird going back there anymore. all the previous times i've visited have resulted in many surreal moments that happen when i'm walking old paths toward my former apartment or the dance studio and i get the feeling as if i haven't left yet, that i still live there. it is a brief second of hallucinatory time travel in a brain that after four years is accustomed to seeing everything as a student, not a visitor. and in all the times i visited before this, i wished these were not just brief moments, but that i were back there. i wanted all my friends still in one place, i wanted the certainty of myself in the world of purple and gold, and most of all, i wanted the comfort of a place that feels like home.

it's not that i don't want some of those things still. (believe me, if i could build a complex that would house all of my favorite people from elmira college and beyond in one place, i would.) but this visit, while it made me miss the people i love and remember the times we had, didn't make me want to be back. instead, there was a peace in being there that i haven't felt before. i was comfortable with being a visitor, and when i left i didn't feel like i was leaving part of my heart behind (as it did so many other times since graduation day). i now realize that things won't ever be the same as they were while i was there, but that i can still enjoy just being where i was always so comfortable, so me. and although it may not be the place i live anymore, it will always be home.

be. it. ever. so.


.