My Stars Shine Darkly

I’ve been in love a lot of times.

I fell in love first with a boy who always spelled my name wrong. I barely knew him, but I knew that he was funny and kind and talented (he was a theater kid) and really, really hot. I spent three years of high school in love with him, and I don’t regret it. He was my first love but in that puppy-love, high school kind of way. It was legit, I did fall “in love” with him, but it will never matter in any real way ever again.

Then I fell for my best friend. He was, more than anything else, KIND. He  listened to me when I was bored, comforted me when I was depressed, told me I was beautiful and smart and loved. He was a geek, like I am. I fell for him accidentally without knowing how. Boy do I regret it. He lied about it all, only pretended to care about me, and is a tremendous asshole in literally every way. Ugh. I shudder to think about him.

Then I went to college, and in a month’s time, I fell for three people. The first two were my best friends: a girl back home, who was depressed and geeky the way I was, and the boy down the hall, who really… got it. I’ve stopped speaking to the girl, and the boy was a short lived infatuation. I don’t regret them. They don’t matter, in the end.

Then there was the third, or rather, IS the third. This wasn’t a fairy tale romance; it was not love at first sight, I didn’t lie awake in agony over the pain of unrequited love. This was simple. This was a love I slipped into comfortably like a well-worn pair of jeans without really noticing it. This was my beloved boyfriend, the love of my life. I didn’t realize I loved him until he told me he loved me; my first reaction was shock. I didn’t reciprocate the words until the next day, when I was sure I felt them. It has been about eight months since then and I’ve only fallen for him more deeply since then. We don’t have a perfect relationship, but we have a damn good one, a strong one, a lasting one.

It may not be the most exciting kind of love, but fuck, it’s the best.

On “Home”.

I just got back to my hometown about 36 hours ago, my freshman year of college having ended at last. I am less than excited to be here– in fact I’m downright miserable– and I’m not even really sure why.

My college life was pretty great. I didn’t love my peers, but the campus was beautiful, my classes interesting, my friends numerous and wonderful, my roommate lovely, my boyfriend loving. I came back here to a town I hate, where I have a family I don’t really get along with, no friends, alone all the time, working probably two jobs to support the college education that I can’t afford. Can I keep in touch with my friends? Easily, though Facebook, Skype, or texting. Will they respond? Doubtful, and I’m so afraid of bothering them that I don’t even try.

See, I have a tenuous connection with the word “home”. In my town, “home” is college. At college, home is my dorm room. In my dorm room, home is my hometown. Even on vacation, when I’m staying in a cabin by the lake, home is the cabin. Home is everywhere and yet nowhere, really. The only consistent thing I can say for home is that it is always somewhere else; home is where I sleep, where my things are. And yet they say “home is where the heart is”, so how can I be home now when my heart is in so many pieces?

My friends are spread across the country: New York, New Jersey, Kansas, Wyoming, Colorado, Chicago, Rhode Island (I’m in Massachusetts). My internet friends are in Florida, England, Finland, Minnesota, Arizona. I’m spread far and wide, so while my family may be here, “home” really isn’t. But I should be happy, right? I should be happy with my cats, good food, my family that I may not like but I do love, who doesn’t really understand my mood swings but isn’t abusive or anything. So why am I still so fucking melodramatic about all this?

The honest answer is “I don’t know”. I’m an overly emotional piece of shit who doesn’t appreciate a damn thing she has. I was missing my boyfriend before he even left. My friends are happy to be home, happy to see their families and friends, and I’m just sitting in my room wanting so desperately to talk to people who have better things to do than entertain my misery. A favored fictional character of mine once said to his love interest that “you are home for me now”, and I think that’s it for me. I think that’s why I have so much trouble being here.

Home isn’t a place for me, it’s a feeling. It’s laughing at the exploding Peep in the microwave with my roommate, it’s the elaborate handshake my friend and I made up years ago when we were still very close but that we both still remember today, it’s singing along to terrible music in a friend’s car, it’s my boyfriend telling me I’m beautiful and kissing me on the forehead. I’m a very physical person, I need to touch and kiss and high five, I need to see people in person. I don’t do well in long distance things, especially with trying to have long distance relationships (friendly or otherwise) with more than five people.

My friends are home. My boyfriend is home. And God knows I’m happy for them, because I do want them to be happy, whatever that means for them. But they are home for me, and I don’t like being away from home.

So, I sometimes check this girl’s blog who I used to be friends with.

And she never posts about anything interesting, mind you, but every once in a while she gets some anon hate. Now, normally she doesn’t even publish it, just writes a little thing under a “read more” that she “really doesn’t need this right now” or that she “hates herself enough without this too”.

And when we were friends, I felt bad. I’d go to her inbox and tell her I loved her, and yell at the anon. I don’t do that anymore, but about 6-8 people still do, screaming that they love her, that she’s wonderful and funny and smart and beautiful and way too good to be hated on. This happens every two weeks or so, and it’s always a ton of people up in arms about it.

So I can’t help but wonder. I’m sure she did get anon hate, but I can’t help but think that at least some of the time this happens she’s just lying to get attention. She’s just SAYING she got anon hate because she knows that people will rush to her defense and compliment her, and if there’s one thing she needs, it’s to be complimented, sometimes blowing things out of proportion or straight up being emotionally manipulative to get it. It’s irritating as fuck. Thank God I got out of that one.