summertime rolls...

i'm going to be summering in my old stomping grounds. i'll be back in philadelphia for three and a half months. ever since last fall i've wanted to be in philadelphia this summer. now i've got a job there, a room in an apartment to sublet, i've put out the word to my philly friends... but why do i feel so...lonely?

huh. how odd. i've never been particularly good with these transitional phases. i look around my apartment these days and all i see are things that need to be boxed up, books that i might want to take with me, music that i'll be sad to leave behind, clothes that will go up in the attic for summer storage.

this is what i want, though, right? of course it is. of course i'm looking forward to being back in philadelphia for the summer. i've got a great internship lined up, i have amazing friendships to revisit that i've sorely missed. but, oh, the transience...

...because, while my life used to exist entirely in philadelphia, while i have very strong friendships with incredible people there, i can't help but wonder if it's going to be, to some degree, like revisiting your high school after you've graduated and gone off to college -- that horrible, hollow awareness that things go on without you and nobody is really any worse off for your absence.

it's going to take a while to get back into the groove. my friends there have all gone on with their lives. i have, too. we've just been in different spaces. in my mind, i want my time in philly to be night after night with a different friend, all good times and laughs, but the reality is that i'm going to have to integrate myself back into those friends' lives little by little. sure, they'll be happy to take me back, but they've got their own routines, their own patterns. i'm not a part of that anymore. i've been gone for two years.

maybe this is what i need -- maybe it will do me some good to be on my own in philadelphia. i won't be on my own, i know that. but i gotta admit, i'm a little nervous. what if i've changed? i'm happier about a lot of things since i went back to school. i'm doing what i want to do, learning things that challenge and inspire me. but what if the changes somehow have made it so that i don't fit where i used to -- like a puzzle piece that gets waterlogged or chewed up by a pet? it looks like it should fit, the relative shape is all there, but the seams aren't so neat and the spaces don't meet up exactly.

and the other part of the story is that i'm going to miss my life in pittsburgh. i'm going to miss my friends. i'll miss having a little space on the roof outside my windows where i can grow vegetables. i'll miss my apartment. i'll miss my plants.

ugh. i'm being quite maudlin and morbid right now. is this what happens when a girl spends her weekend with conflict of laws?

i'm going to bed. three finals down, two to go... and then? then i can think about this stuff all i want.