Fear

I am homesick. I think it's because I am afraid of what's here.

I am afraid of where I am going. What am I doing? How do I deal with these situations? What is it that scares me about the possibilities, about that particular interaction, about growing closer, about talking and talking and talking, about staring?

I don't know. All I know to do is to write, and sleep, and hope. I know to face the things I want to run from. But the truth is that I want to run away, home, to the warm weather and my own room, to silence, to the mountains and the beach. I want to run 3000 miles and 3 hours of time difference away. (Difference: I cannot quantify how much difference there is between us. When you care about all the same things, how big a problem is it that you seek them in completely different ways?) I want physical and temporal distance to keep me safe, to be the guards so I don't have to guard myself, to be barriers so I don't have to erect them myself. I don't want to push you away, but I also can't seem to let you in. What is it about the way we interact that makes me feel burdened? Why am I afraid, when this is everything I thought I was looking for?

I want to be home, I want to be a child, I want life to be simple. Nothing is wrong, but something is wrong, and I can't name it.

But maybe the real reason I'm homesick is just that it's been a month. Maybe it's just that it's March and the snow is pouring down. The sky doesn't exist today; it is all full of snow. No such thing as space. A snowflake occupies every place--just like person occupies every place in my mind, in my schedule. I am sick for solitude. I am sick for the familiar, for the family. I have never thought of myself as a fearful person, but I find I have more in common with Much-Afraid than I realized. When will I find my hinds' feet and reach the High Places? I'll stop pretending: it's not the snowy weather or the number of weeks away that make me long for home, but the climate of my soul and the number of fears in my heart.