in medias res

I should be working.

Belated greetings from the university library. I’m here to outline my thesis and marvel at how loudly my water bottle opens and my Dove dark chocolate wrapper crinkles.
I need to clear out some thoughts in my head. I like this corner of the library. I can see the sky and the tops of the trees. I'm alone in my little nerd world, and the sun is casting long shadows across my table. Notes to no one?

By now my meager readership has given up on me. (I hate to see you leave, but I love to watch you go. Oh, wait...wrong line?)

An Update:
I went home for the holidays – the first holiday sans little brother. He and his new wife were enjoying their Charlie Brown Christmas in Atlanta. We talked to him at least twice a day. Home behaved as usual - I had a wonderful time, with just enough discomfort to make me wonder if I will ever return for good. Friday night, I met up with home friends at a sports bar with bad live music with predictable cover songs, but we always see people we haven’t seen in years. One guy from high school travels Europe and the US as a professional skateboarder. It’s now more unnerving than comfortable to run into the high school acquaintances when I'm out. My mental rolodex is blurred, and I want to catch up on everything, but there's no time. I enjoyed the surreal quality of the night, but I was happy when the strange conversations could end and I could walk out of the door and make that same drive home I made so many times in high school. My room hasn’t changed. I can rely on the sage walls and dancing cherubs and my window onto the roof.

Most of my time was spent with the family. My other youngest brother and I moved easily from discussions on love and God to jokes and bad movies. My family all played board games, watched movies, and ate. For Christmas and my birthday, I got a sewing machine, a gadget-y suitcase, clothes, books, two rats, pilates DVDs, and some of my younger-ing face wash. I wonder if I’ll ever get too old for this. My brother got a handheld GPS device, and he gave us updates on our current location and speed. I didn’t have the heart to burst his Indiana-Jones-bubble and tell him about the speedometer and road signs.

After one week at home with my family, I packed up my car and drove northwest to Kentucky for New Year’s. I met the Boy’s family, ate in the first Kentucky Fried Chicken, and became addicted to a game on his brother’s PSP. (It’s like Tetris, except you make squares of colors and the boxes fill in the spaces so there are never any holes.) We also ate, watched movies, and sat around and talked. His family was kind and funny, and I got to see all of the places and people that go into his stories. It was nice.

Now I’m back at school. The Boy came down for another nice long weekend before classes started, and now I’m full-speed into another semester. It's thesis time. This is the end (“my only friend, the end”), and I feel the constant weight of upcoming colossal decisions. Someone told me today that there are no bad decisions – everything always works out. But, I want to at least minimize the damage. I don’t want to miss obvious signs about where I need to go, but it’s impossible to look in and get a full perspective. And I think too much. And these are the same neuroses that will keep me and my cats and my career cozy for the next fifty years. Care to join?

posted by tara @ 4:20 PM