fall is really settling into my skin now, i am feeling a cocooning around myself, an acknowledgement of the paper-thinness of my skin and a deep well of loneliness inside.

it's ok, i am not feeling panicked by this, i know that i won't always be alone or lonely. i know there are people who love me and that i love them back.

i do know now, though, that our lives have taken separate roads, and i don't think i will ever find myself back in their daily presence again.

i didn't realize it when i struck out to the east 2 years ago that i was truly leaving my family and friends behind, but that is what i have done. in a day to day way, i mean.

like when my parents struck out west, they never returned, and certainly no one followed them. i went east then north and i don't believe i'll ever return, and i know no one's going to follow.

and that's ok. i have found an identity that has nothing to do with anyone but me. i have formed an idea of myself that is only very loosely related to the person that the people back home remember and love.

i mean, i am still me, but...

shit i don't know.

sometimes, i just feel like they wouldn't know me anymore, not really. and i have to admit that makes me sad.

but that's how it is. we all have whole lives that are completely disconnected from one another in really important ways.

and that's just how life is.

we love each other, but we are satellites.

you know who it makes me really long for? my family.

even though i know you can never go home.

that was part of what was so unnerving for me when i went home in june.

"going home" wasn't just going back to thousand oaks.

going home was going back to california period.

it was so lonely to feel like a total stranger to everyone i love most, to feel like a distraction from daily life, rather than being part of the daily life.

and how everyone seemed to act like i was the same person as when i left in 2002, and how i feel so different than that.

but that i didn't know how to act any differently with them.

it's bad. it feels bad.

it feels sad.