America Calling

Three flights down in so few days. One nice dinner, one family wedding. The first flight was okay. I took a xanax, I slept. I watched half a movie I'd seen before. I ate something that was supposed to be beef, but I have my suspicions. The second flight was surprisingly okay. I felt 'normal' on a plane, which is to say, I didn't feel anything at all about it, which is a good thing. The third flight, just earlier today, was so-so. I had some tense moments of feeling decidedly unpleasant. But no major panic. And no drugs on the two shorter flights, which was pretty good.

It was good to see my extended family most of whom I had not seen for three years and some for even longer. Apparently I looked well. Apparently I have an accent and sound funny. And I, amidst my family felt as lost as I ever have. Knowing I belong, but not belonging. My cousins wedding was a massive affair of about 350 people. A good American Jewish wedding. It struck me, throughout the ceremony and the celebrations, the small details that I take for granted. The massive amount of people there who all know how to dance the hora, who all know when to shout mazel tov, who knew to life the bridge and groom in chairs and dance them around. It's not like Christian weddings. The katuba, the broken glass, the drinking of wine, the simple ring of a band of gold, no stones allowed. S, my cousin is younger than me by about five years or so. And now she is married and people joke with her about having babies. And it's all so picture perfect suburban dream.... and so far removed from my world and my existance.

I have never belonged in that world. And now I've moved to a different sort of world that I also don't enjoy. That of my mother's daughter. Where I am perpetualy twelve. Where what I say doesn't matter. Where my memory of events and her memory of events are not always the same. And that's hard. I find that I just retreat into myself. And I snap. And I'm mean to my mother. And I don't really want to be mean to her, but she annoys me so much it's unbelievable, and I can't help it. And then I feel worse and I probably snap even more.

Tomorrow I must study all day. First exam on Wednesday, then horrible studying for the next exam on Friday, and then I'm rushing to catch the train to DC. Where it will be Easter with another family I never feel that I fit into, but this time, my step-mother's family. If my time at home can be categorized in anyw ay, it wold only be a most desperate sense of aloneness, which is so very heightened by my proximity to things that I feel I should be a part of. But then what is it they say, you can never go home? I guess I just often wonder, if there ever really was a home the first time around.