Waiting.

So, let's get it clear that I don't hate Boston. It's a beautiful city on a beautiful ocean and there are a thousand beautiful people I meet on a daily basis. The historic areas, the amazing towns like Salem, and the people I've come to love here are not to be discounted by this post.

But it's not home. It's never felt like home to me. I know it's got to be old sounding by now, but I've been robbed of my home. My parents lost the house I grew up in, my old neighborhood is unfamiliar, and sadly deteriorated. The halcyon days of my childhood feel like they were on another planet entirely.

The bitch of it is that I really, absolutely cannot go back to them. Not even to visit. I spent the better part of a day getting over a dream that we were forced to move back into the farmhouse and it dregged up so much buried stress that I nearly had a panic attack. Think about that for a second. A dream nearly caused me to hyperventilate. That's how much it hurts.

Back? Ok.

As a human being I feel like someone grabbed me by the ankles and shook me upside down until everything of worth was stripped from me, and all I had left was what couldn't be shaken out. It's why I go crazy around my sister. We have all the same flaws we used to have that get on each other's nerves, but even half a thought of losing her and I get a lump in my throat so bad I can barely breathe. We may fight, but there is no force strong enough to keep me mad at her.

So here I am, living this life for the past half decade or longer. I lost track, it happens. And marrying Matt has restored a lot of my losses. I have a home with him now, and have never, ever in my life felt more secure with another person. In every other relationship, I've had a foot out the door, or was too afraid to ever voice an opinion, let alone show I wasn't down with what was going on.

Matt's given me a home, and a place to belong. He's given me a safe, secure base that won't crumble no matter how bad the world tries to shake it. But for all the wonderfulness that is married life in the Murphy family, a big part of me is still missing.

I've tried very hard to recreate what I most need out here, but it tends to fizzle. It's no one's fault, it's just very hard to build a great something out of nothing in a very short time. I had to start all of my social interactions from scratch. All of them. I had to meet people at work, bite the bullet and hope they weren't crazy. What frame of reference did I have? I didn't go to school with their siblings, or know their cousin from that one weird year at camp. I got a couple of people worth keeping out of five years worth of trying. Considering how little I had to start with, and how hard it is even to make one new friend who ends up staying with you through life, I think that's pretty good.

But I desire more. I need more. I see the holidays like I used to have. Family and friends of the family, all gathered at a house in sweaters, talking about jobs and sports and life. I listened to my uncles talk about their childhoods, my aunts talked about raising the babies, and my cousins and I ran around like spazzes. We could do fuck all the rest of the year, but that Christmas reunion was the big draw. Everyone came like Littles to the Little house. It was like they just knew.

I work at Kohl's, no great accomplishment. But there are days where I see the doppleganger of someone in Pittsburgh and my heart drops. I'm so far away. I want to be able to be at work and see Chelle come through my line, or be out shopping and run into Kelly and Jason, or just call someone up and say "Hey, I have to go do ______, wanna come with?" I see them all around me, and yet when they turn in profile it's never them. It's like trying to grab smoke.

The isolation makes me feel like I'm going insane. And I don't blame the people out here. It's just they are younger, or city life is different, or I just have gotten so depressed about it that I don't want to make that effort out here anymore. I would give my left arm tonight to call someone and meet up at a diner. Have coffee. Laugh, cry, swap stories and just exist. But the people who'd answer that call are hundreds of miles away. I'm just tired, and weary, and ready to settle down. I've been through too much for my age, and I long for all that has been destroyed to be completely healed and rebuilt.

I can see the finish line, just 10 more months. Then this ready made group of people who have already made me a part of their lives will open, and the raw, tired parts of my soul will be able to rest, recover, and I can be a whole, complete person again.

But tonight, tonight I am just waiting. Waiting, and trying so very hard to be patient.