Episode LXXIX – Home is a delusion.

The plane whined and juddered as its beaky rounded nose cut through tons of mid-air falling ice crystals. In my stinky seat, I rubbed my baby smooth skin absently and ignored the rumbling thuds of turbulence that slammed the fuselage. Unfortunately, my clean shaven face was the best part about my appearance. Dank heavy bags hung low over my bloodshot eyes. Fatigue coursed through every capillary of my body. Oddly, my temperature radiated between inferno hot and iceberg cold. My hair hung in distorted clumps, having grown out from the worst five dollar haircut ever.

All of these things were collateral issues. The important thing was that I was going home. And, as the plane had just rocketed out of the last strata of clouds, the rest of the flight appeared to be smooth sailing. An uneventful flight only could mean one thing for me: plenty of time to ruminate on why I was anxious to go home. Homesickness was definitely a new feeling for me. Every time I had left home before, I had not wanted to return. Yet, for the last month or so of the semester, San Diego had been all I could think of during my lucid moments.

Before I could really delve into any subconscious yearnings or other philosophical musings about the situation, I was asleep. The next thing I knew, the plane was at the gate, and the few passengers of the flight were jockeying for position to wait. I threw off my coat as I was horribly hot again, and tried to scrape my hair horns into some semblance of respectability. Then, it was up the gangplank, into the terminal, and into eyesight of my parents.

I hadn’t seen them for several months, yet they looked exactly the same. In the first minutes of conversation, they inquired about my grades, and other things that I didn’t really want to talk about. By the time we had corralled my luggage, and reached the car, my thoughts were again seething with forgotten frustrations. The city hadn’t changed at all to the car captured eye. The moist winter fog seemed to have wrapped the simple exterior in a time stopping blanket. If I ignored the simple truths of reality, it was almost like I had never left.

We arrived back at my house. After wrestling my luggage into my room, my parents left me alone. Things seemed different. It was my room, but it wasn’t. The posters were gone. The stereo was gone. My clothes were gone. All that was left was the bed, which as I sat on it, seemed smaller, lower, and more uncomfortable. The whole room seemed tiny to the large expanse my mind remembered. Uncomfortable, I dragged my suitcase full of dirty laundry to the garage, and started washing my clothes. After a couple minutes, I headed back in and wandered down the hall. Things were mostly the same. The sense of confinement increased as I kept walking. The amount of steps from the garage to the living room seemed incredibly short.

No conversation was forthcoming from either parent at the end of the hall. I rambled back to my room and sat on the edge of the bed. The phone rang. Instinctively, I answered it. It was Senor Inteligente who told me about a burgeoning party happening in a matter of hours. I felt tired. I felt like I should stay, because I had been thinking about this moment for a long time. I looked at the tired red analog clock on my bedside thinking that I had been home for at least an hour. Instead, it showed that ten minutes had passed. I couldn’t stand it any more. There was only one thing to do: I told him that I’d see him at the party, and I left, because it felt like I had never arrived.