Tasting the crisp, cool air as it fills your lungs.

I don't know if it's just a Thanksgiving thing, but for some reason it's always (and by "always" I mean this year and last year) around mid to late November that I start feeling a mixture of extreme homesickness/nostalgia/yearning to be back in the Pacific Northwest. Not specifically within the house I grew up in per se, but just to be back in the area.

You won't notice this at the bottom of the page because I'm not going to post until later in the day, but as I sit here typing this it's currently 4:20 in the AM on the Monday before Thanksgiving. You see, I have a term paper due Tuesday that I really don't want to do, and a proposal for another term paper due later today. The second is a little less tedious, because it's for my Children's Lit. class and I'm writing about gender roles within Harry Potter, rather than the 1791 French Constitution. Also, my senior thesis is due in eight days. Yikes. If you hadn't noticed, my workload is increasing significantly, meanwhile my motivation is dwindling to the point where all I can do is sit at my desk, listen to old Seattle U Choirs music (that was recorded almost three years ago now...wow guys, we're officially getting old), and let the nostalgia course through my veins.

It's not that I regret coming to Oxy. I love Oxy. I love most everything about Oxy - the people, the professors, the weather...the list goes on. Not to mention, LA is an amazing city and I feel like I've done a lot more growing up here than I did living in Seattle - both intellectually and personally. The only downside to being here is that I literally never get to see my extended family anymore, and - at times - that feels like a deep stab to the chest and I can't breathe. I left some of the best friends I've ever had up in Seattle too; the goofiest, craziest, kindest, most caring best friends a girl could ask for, and I left them just so I could get a better education. Like I said, I don't regret leaving, but right now I can't help but wonder what if I never did.

November and December are, in my opinion, literally the best months to be in the Pacific Northwest. The way the trees lose their leaves, tasting the crisp, cool air as it fills your lungs, the sound of rain pounding your window late at night, the way you can just bundle up in your scarves, boots, mittens, and North Face jacket and go for a walk in downtown Seattle, the way your aunt's house smells like Christmas and love and family and you can't imagine being anywhere else for the holidays, and that excited feeling you get when you hear on the news that it might snow tonight (aka. no school tomorrow). You don't really get a lot of that in Southern California, and right now I would give anything for it.

I miss the drive back to Eugene from Seattle just my mom and me the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I miss going to visit my high school teachers. I miss hugging my best friends from high school. I miss how Valley River Mall in Eugene gets all decked out for Christmas with garland, and of course the Santa who's been there since I was a toddler. I miss the way my Grammy's turkey stuffing melts in my mouth. I miss being able to see how much my baby cousin (who is now 13 and how the hell that happened I could not tell you) has changed and grown up. I miss the drive back up to Washington for a second Thanksgiving spent at my aunt's house in Olympia, spending the entire car ride zoned out listening to the Twilight soundtrack (judge me...). I miss hearing my Grandma tell me I should go back for seconds (and thirds) because she knows just how to make me not feel self-conscious about my weight for once. I miss joking around and laughing too loudly with my favorite cousin, who's now a college freshman and I don't know how that happened either. I miss long conversations with my uncle, who - and I'll admit I've never told him this in person before - is the greatest man I know and my role model. I miss cuddling up on the couch and watching Christmas movies, all the while knowing I'd still have to get through 30 hours of work, two choir concerts, countless hours of rehearsals, and finals before the actual day would get here. I miss going back up to Seattle and listening to my best friend Arielle tell me all of her stories about getting stuck at the kiddie table for Thanksgiving dinner again. I miss my best friend Andre coming to sit in my room for six hours straight while I'm trying to finish a paper. I miss singing inside St. Joseph's Cathedral on a cold Friday night for a concert. I miss my favorite professors at Seattle U (Frau Brown, Holly, Paul, Professor Pepper, Doc...lol that is actually the strangest combination of names ever). I miss walking outside, heading to an 8:00 AM final, and being able to see my breath. I miss finally finishing finals, only to come back to the room and see Arielle dancing around in her towel to the Glee version of "Valerie."

Overall I guess I just really miss the Pacific Northwest right now.

I imagine a lot of you can empathize, since I think Oxy literally has students from all 50 states save for maybe two (and from God knows how many countries) attending. I know I certainly empathize with you.

I guess in a way it took (finally) leaving the Pacific Northwest to truly appreciate what I left behind. I needed to do it, and honestly I don't really want to settle back up there permanently if I can help it, but now that I have this greater appreciation it makes the nostalgia hurt a little bit worse. Also the weather down here is too damn warm and I find myself wishing more and more every day that it would get just a little cooler...you know, like 40 - aka. what it's supposed to be this time of year. Come on LA, stop contributing to global warming and get with the program.

Winter break, please get here faster.

~Erin

P.S. You know what I told myself I'd never start playing? Candy Crush. You know what I started playing anyway? Candy Crush. You know what's super addicting? Candy Crush.

I have no self control.

The watering hole.

You know how in Mean Girls there's this scene where Cady's like at the mall with Regina and the rest of the Plastics, and her inner monologue starts talking about like, if she and Regina were animals in the African desert they would have settled their "differences" by clawing each other to death in the watering hole? And then she pretends to tackle Regina to the ground and everyone surrounds them, howling in wild animal-speak: "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!" 

Well, I had one of those moments today.

Not physically of course, but after I got out of class I walked past this person who, for most of last year, I considered one of my best friends. Turns out they didn't feel the same about me, and by that I mean they A. don't talk to me anymore, and B. they don't make eye contact with me anymore. For whatever reason, I basically don't exist to them anymore. Of course, being the 21 year old college senior that I am, I've gotten over it. Yeah, losing a friend sucks, but I graduated middle school (with a 4.0, mind you). If someone wants to shut me out for no apparent reason - despite all my efforts (and a half dozen emails) - then I'm not going to kill myself over trying to be in their life, if you catch my drift. 

Anywho, I had just gotten out of class and grabbed a coffee before work. I was in a decent mood; the dining hall was serving Thanksgiving food for lunch (INCLUDING MARTINELLI'S. SCORE), the class I'd just gotten out of is probably my favorite college course out of the three and a half years I've been a student, and it was pleasantly chilly outside...aka. a solid 60-65 degrees - winter in LA.

But then I saw them. Just, you know, sitting there on the patio eating lunch and chattering away with another someone I'm not altogether too fond of. 

(By the way...I'm only really not fond of two people at my school, and I'm talking about them now. I don't hate everyone I swear).

The first thing I thought of when I saw them was to just casually walk past them from behind, like "oh, nothing's wrong I'm just minding my own business," and then veryyy sneakily take my left hand and SHOVE THAT SMUG FACE STRAIGHT INTO THE MASHED POTATOES...with a soundtrack of wild animal noises playing in the background.

Yeah, it's been one of those weeks.

"Erin, are you okay?"

I'm not used to people asking me if I'm okay.

Normally, I'm so good at hiding whatever negative feelings I happen to be feeling that sometimes I even forget I felt them in the first place. Of course you can imagine the aftermath of that - sitting alone in my room, feeling sorry for myself, all the while balling my eyes out, curled up into a ball on top of my bed - so it's not very good for me, but I still do it because...well, just because. And people don't notice, and therefore never ask me if I'm "okay."

People - including my therapist (yes, I have joined the masses of LA citizens and decided to pay a complete stranger to solve all my problems for me) - always say it's best to just "let it all out" because "you'll feel so much better" and blah blah blah blah BLAH. Well I hate to break it to you, but that's not exactly how my brain is wired. 

No really, I have years of stuff still buried wayyy deep down in there and I mean, after a while I feel like it just became a part of me - like what if all the sudden I just let it all out for all the world to know? Then who would I be? To me, spilling a secret is like losing a piece of myself, what makes me, me. So when people ask me if I'm "okay," even if the answer is no - like it is most of the time these days - I usually always say yes, so that I don't have to lose a little bit more of myself. Does that make sense?

If you didn't already guess, there's this person in my life right now who keeps asking me if I'm "okay," while simultaneously giving me this look that says like "I know you're lying if you say yes because you always look so sad and/or exhausted and I'm around if you ever want to talk." Well thank you, I'm extremely grateful to you for caring, but I also have this wall built up that takes like 1200 strong men and a nuclear bomb to break through so good luck with that and I'm sure you'll get tired of trying.

Eventually I know they'll stop asking me if I'm "okay." I know this, because it's happened so many times before. People get tired of listening to a lie, especially when they can recognize it. The only thing is, I don't want this person to stop. But the only way to keep them from stopping is to start talking, and I'm not sure I can do that either.

You catch my drift?

~Erin