December 30, 2004 - 10:19 p.m. Here's another delightfully depressing entry, but I really can't help it. I hate to burden anyone with this outloud, but this is what diaries are for. We're home from St. Louis. Well, they're home. I realize that I still have ten more painful days before I get to be anywhere that feels like home. This is what I've come to talk to you about. I've been feeling for some time now that I lack a place that exemplifies the word home. School cannot be home because it's so fleeting. We may live there part of the year, but it's a makeshift sort of living that reeks of transience. Plus, if I invest in school as home, then in seven short semesters, I'm back in this mire again. Yet, my house in Willow Park is not really home either anymore. I have no space that is belongs to me. They (my family) ask nothing of me in way of contribution to the running of the household. I feel invisible around here. And when they do happen to bump into me, the address me with what I fear might be annoyance that I was standing in one of their paths. Nothing is the same anymore. This I could remedy by either coming home more or coming home less. I don't think I could possibly come home less, and coming home more is obviously painful. No one told me that I would suddenly lack a home. No one mentioned that part of growing up is an agonizing feeling of belonging nowhere until I theoretically grow up and make my home wherever I'm standing at the moment. You know I don't do well with change. You know how I get emotionally attached to places and have difficulty letting them grow into other things. You know I have difficulty letting myself grow into other things. You've probably heard this from me before, and most likely you will hear it again before I get settled into belonging nowhere. Until then, please don't be too frustrated with how uncomfortable I am. I'll grow out of it. ...before & after...