The Sweetest Winds...

It's 11:05 pm, and I'm sitting here with Jess and John watching (and Jane just got here) and we're watching the Tonys on TV and I'm writing my Emmy acceptance speech in my head. I have to be at work at 5:45 am tomorrow for round two of the college road trip.

The first week was a bittersweet experience, and so I face this sequel with both excitement and trepidation. Last week I got to spend some awesome time with 3 of my wonderful students, and a bunch of other sweet CF students, and I got to see them really picture themselves in college for perhaps the first time in their lives. On the other hand, I got in serious trouble twice - once for something that was 100% my fault and once by our ED about something completely false and unsubstantiated and the unjustice of it all made me want to scream and walk away from CF forever.

Like I said - bittersweet. In general though, it seems that the closer I move towards the end of my time at CF the more I am ready for it. I've learned a lot, I've grown a lot, and I appreciate it the experience. But on the purely selfish level, the most helpful thing I gained from this year was the assurance that this was not at all the path I want to go down. And that the nonprofit world is just as rife with manipulation, unfairness, and capitalistic competition as any other. I haven't lost my idealism entirely - I'd still like to believe that I can have a positive influence on the world. Rather, I've simply come to realize that I can seek out the achievement of that goal in whatever path I choose to take... and I will.

Meanwhile, the end of my time at CF has brought with it more than just reflection about the past year - it's also brought an inordinate amount of thoughts of home. It's weird. I feel like I've come so far this year and grown so much, but these past few weeks have found me far and away the most homesick I've been since moving here in August. I've always assumed that once I'd made it a year, the whole homesickness thing would just sort of fade away.

But it's summer, and summer is always a time I associate with being at home with my parents and old friends. Over and over again I find myself wishing I was poolside at the condo, or having a cuppa with my dad at the B&N across the street, or having lunch with my mom at La Madeline's or The Swan House. I just feel like summer in the South is a special experience for me. It's about visiting family and going to the beach and having barbecues and afternoon thunderstorms and I don't even know what else. But I miss it.

It doesn't help that issues with certain friends here are making me crave some space and distance. Or that I'm facing 2 weeks of nothing to do but be tempted into spending money. Or that we're fast approaching the 1 year anniversary of my grandfather's passing and it makes me think about my grandmother all the time. Or that the most recent fork I've taken in my road of life - this decision to pursue tv writing - makes me more uncertain than ever of when I'll be able to move back to GA or SC. I mean film directors and actors travel the world for the movies they make, and tv shows are shot in various places around the country. But as far as I know, nearly every tv writer works in an office in LA and I don't know what that means about my future life. I can't help but wonder if this might be my last chance to spend any real time at home.

There seems to always be this internal struggle going on with me - between the part of me that loves my family above all else and just wants to be near them, and the part of me that's filled with wanderlust and a need for adventure and a deep deep desire to pursue my creative dreams. And at these various points in my life I have tried to define myself as one or the other - by going to Guate for the summer, or by coming home early, or by moving here. But when I was at the Supernatural convention in LA, someone asked Jensen and Jared where they would want to be most in the world at that moment... other than at the con. And they both said... without hesitation... home with their families in Texas. And it made me think for the first time that maybe I don't have to be one way or the other. I know what I have to do to get where I want to go in life, but that doesn't mean I can't want to be with my family at every available opportunity.

There are people that never venture out into the world and spend their whole lives wondering what could have been. But there are also people who spend their whole lives running after a dream and just wishing that they could get it and take it back home with them.

So I have this 2 weeks between when my job ends and I go to Mexico and I've been wishing for a way to spend that time at home. And I've been thinking of flying standby while I still can (up til July 25th... when I turn 23), which would only be $70 each way, but I'm just not sure if it's the right choice. Part of me wants nothing more than to get home as soon as I can, and part of me is scared to miss anything here... to have to say good bye earlier to the people that will be gone by the time I get back in August. I don't know what the right choice is yet... I really don't. But tonight at the store I asked Jessica if she thought it was a cop out to go home early... like I was giving in to homesickness. And she said she couldn't tell me cause it doesn't work that way for her. I asked her if she meant she didn't get homesick, and she said, "no, I do... I just don't feel guilty about it." I'm not sure when I decided that wanting to go home was worthy of guilt, but I think maybe Jess has the right idea.

Alright, I have to go to bed RIGHT NOW so I can at least get a few hours sleep, but in the meantime check out this Ryan Adams song that I love love love:

Oh My Sweet Carolina


I went down to Houston
And I stopped in San Antone
I passed up the station for the bus
I was trying to find me something
But I wasn't sure just what
Man I ended up with pockets full of dust

So I went on to Cleveland and I ended up insane
I bought a borrowed suit and learned to dance
I was spending money like the way it likes to rain
Man I ended up with pockets full of cane

Oh my sweet Carolina
What compels me to go
Oh my sweet disposition
May you one day carry me home

I ain't never been to Vegas but I gambled up my life
Building newsprint boats I race to sewer mains
Was trying to find me something but I wasn't sure just what
Funny how they say that some things never change

Oh my sweet Carolina
What compels me to go
Oh my sweet disposition
May you one day carry me home

Up here in the city feels like things are closing in
The sunsets just my light bulb burning out
I miss KENTUCKY and I miss my family
All the sweetest winds they blow across the south

Oh my sweet Carolina
What compels me to go
Oh my sweet disposition
May you one day carry me home
May you one day carry me home


<3,

L