I know how it feels to be lonely
and I know what it means to be free
now I want to know how to love you...

Ah, I love being home. Even if I feel like death warmed over, I feel like death warmed over in a nicely familiar place, in a house that is MINE ALL MINE. There is something really comforting about that.

I really meant to call/email people today, and most of that didn't get done and probably won't get done today. But I've drunk a lot of water and I've worked some and life is looking up. I plan on taking life easy tonight, setting up the food processor (christmas gift! yay mom!) and doing some laundry.

Saturday, I'm going to Vancouver and dragging Chris along with me. I need moisturizer and tea, and I want to pick up some real Coke, and I want to kind of show Chris around the city, so he gets a better idea of what it's like. We should have nice driving weather, and I've been itching for a road trip.

This was taken on the day I "graduated" from preschool, in 1979. I was four and a half years old.

(Click on the picture for a bigger version.)

I am not a particularly happy-looking child here. I recognize the look I have on my face--"I have to sit here in this stupid hat and this stupid pink dress and not run away, but I'm hot and I'm cranky and there have been people paying attention to me all day. Well, they might be able to make me sit for a picture but by god they cannot make me smile."

And underneath the sulkiness is a deeper melancholy. I'm looking out at the camera, I'm actually connecting with the person behind the lens (probably my father), but there is no joy in the contact. There is a lot that's hidden behind my eyes in this picture; I look like I'm guarding a secret. Or maybe three or four secrets.

On occasion, I start to think that I was relatively normal as a kid. This is the sort of thing that proves to me that I wasn't. From about this time forward, pictures of me by myself are relatively rare in the family photo albums. While my brother has reams of pictures of him alone, I was almost always captured in a group if I was photographed at all.

Looking at the family albums, it's obvious that I was always "other", some sort of space alien. There are no photographs of me relaxed or at play; when I am touching other people, I always look stiff and uncomfortable. Smiles are infrequent when I'm young; at about puberty, when the depression first hit with a vengeance, there are pictures of me with an awful, rictus-like smile on my face.

I think my parents did the best that they could with me, the best they knew how; I was an exceedingly difficult child for them to understand. My mother said that I was simply *awful* as a baby. I refused to nurse mostly because I didn't want to be held. I had a circadian rhythm that wanted me to be awake until four AM and then sleep until noon--and my most active hours of the day were midnight to four AM. I wanted to be played with pretty solidly from midnight until whenever I fell asleep--but for the rest of the day, I was pretty much as antisocial as a baby can be. I wasn't a sweet, cuddly, rewarding baby. I didn't offer kisses or affection. I looked out on the world with suspicious eyes.

In earlier times I would have been called a changeling, likely.

They did do the best they could, and I'm the result. I guess, as an experiment, it didn't turn out *too* badly.

Last night, coming home, the fog was lit up from cities below, transluscent cloud lit from within by streetlights and Christmas decorations. I was nervous; I attempted to calm myself by telling myself that instrument landings were all the rage these days.

We didn't leand nearly soon enough for me.

After arriving home (Velvet gave me a ride; thank you thank you thank you from the very bottom of my heart!) I set my stuff down, petted the cats, listened to my messages, and just generally reveled in being home. After doing the rounds of the various relatives this week, I'm exhausted; I'm so glad I only see these people once every couple of years.

It was a long trip, far longer than any five days really have any right to be. I did get to go to Fresh Choice and Togo's, though, and get my fill of fudge and date bars.

I'm glad to be back, though, in the real world. Or the unreal one. Whichever this one is, I'm happy to be back.

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