Twilight (a time of day) (don't get your hopes up).

As much as I like to think that I am a city person, I think I'm actually a small-town person at heart. I'm definitely not a country person, that's for sure, because I'm starting to realize that the things I think I love about cities are really the things I love about small towns: people. I love people. I love knowing my neighbors and seeing the same ornery woman behind her desk on the second level of the library.


I love local bookstores and local coffee shops and local gas stations and local restaurants. I love local car washes, and I'm still a little cut up about the whole Firehouse Car Wash being bought out by nationally renowned Mr. Hot Shine, because that little car wash was a part of this little city! It was a part of my little city, like I'm a part of this little city, I'm a part of my little city.


And I love small-town because it's home. Maybe if I grew up in the country, I'd be a country person. Maybe if I grew up in the city, I'd be a real honest city person. But I grew up in a little baby, overly conservative town, and when people say things like, "Obama sucks," I know they're just saying, "Welcome home, Addy."


And I'm going to leave here someday. I'm might build bridges, I might write books, and I'm going to go to New York City, as cliche as it is. San Fransisco and Paris and Rome and Cairo and London and Tokyo, and maybe someday I'll call that my home. I'll stand at the feet of the Hellenistic Beauty and I'll cry and say, "I'm home," and I'll stand in Times Square and say, "I'm home," and I'll lean out of open windows in Barcelona and I'll say, "I'm home!" and no one will know what I'm saying because I speak English and they speak Spanish there.


Maybe I'll even go to Mitchell, Arizona, which is somewhat ironic and an anomaly in of itself. Mitchell, Arizona is doublethink in city form (boy form?). Maybe I'll fall in love with everywhere in the world and when I look at a map, I'll just stretch out my arms and embrace the entire world as my home.


But now? Right now? Home is my family and the weird conglomeration of friends that I've collected. Home smells like my shampoo. Home is Avery's shampoo and Kaitlyn's shampoo and how our hairs stick to Matt's black coat and how Kyle laughs when we pull them off. 


Maybe someday my home will be universal, because there are things that are universal, you know? Friends are universal, I bet, like families are universal and youth is universal. Heartache and euphoria are probably universal, and fires probably burn when you light them no matter where you are. As far as I'm aware, shampoo smells the same wherever you go in the whole world and hair probably sticks to coats on all continents.


But I'm not leaving yet, like you are not leaving yet, and like we might never leave, really, because we're pieces of each other at this point. I'm not leaving yet.


I'm still not over 17-year-old Leo. (Are you asking me on a date?)
All my love,
Addy

Pools of boiling wax.

Sometimes I want to go "home" but I don't really know what "home" is. But I guess that home can be created anywhere. Because when I think about "coming home" I don't think of my literal house; it's more about the people and the details.


This is home. I don't care what anyone else thinks about these people that I have or the way that we live or dress, because this is my home. This is where I have memories and a past.


This is home. This is the place where I grew up and fell in love and it's the place of free Thursday summer concerts. This is my family and my sisters and dinner with my parents. This is Matt Davis and the neighborhood boys and boy-stalking. This is wasting too much time and watching too many eighties movies. 


This is home. This is where I can sit in dollar movie theaters and make ridiculous cards. This is the quiet of the nights in the wintertime and the relief of spring. This is my cousins on the Fourth of July. This is seeing Katie at Orange Leaf and spending millions of dollars at Hawaiian Ice. This is Kaitlyn's sweater with a hole in the shoulder.


This is home. This is Avery's cat cookies and Katie showing up in my bedroom before work. This is the time we dyed Emily's hair blue in my basement bathroom. This is yoga class with and Ms. Luse. This is feminism with Sierra and rides home in Matt's three-doored van. This is paying Zack to go out of his way for me.


This is home. This is holding hands and crying every day and dancing in parking lots and writing poetry. This is my library and these are my future-professors-of-America friends and this is my bed and my quilt and my bookshelf. This is being witty with Avery. This is reading books far too late at night.


This is home, folks. This is knowing that there will always be enough air to breathe.


We watch things on the VCR.
All my love,
Addy