The Next Bold Move – Me Vs. The World

Breathe.  Just breath Libby. This sounds stupid, but when you are having a panic attack for no reason other than you don’t know what to wear and your clothes are strewn around your roommate’s living room because you are sharing a 1-bedroom apartment in order to have cheap rent, breathing is no longer an involuntary motion.  Just breathe damnit.  I have a paper to revise for school that is extremely overdue at this point and in need of yet another revision, but I call my sister, Megan, who says, “I know what you’re going through.  They do just come out of nowhere and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”  I talk myself through this ridiculous panic attack with her on the other end of the phone just listening.  Her babies are already asleep and she should probably be resting before starting another week, but she quietly listens to me chatter on about breathing.

What is most frustrating is the timing of this attack.  For once in my life everything is going well.  So why am I having a panic attack?  I don’t know.  I have felt it coming on or at least that would explain my ridiculous behavior lately. Ever since I got back from my trip to NYC and home I haven’t felt myself.  I blame it on culture shock.  I blame it on being around people for 3 weeks straight with no down time to be by myself.  Both of these reasons are true, but I think something else is bothering me and I just don’t know what.  Was it what the psychic said?  She told me I was going to move?  Now, I’m thinking about moving when I wasn’t before.  I don’t know where to go or what to do.  I haven’t been able to sleep and I blame the three hour time difference I’m trying to get used to but my body refuses.  I can’t get rid of this horrible nagging feeling that something is going to happen.  I can’t say good or bad.  Or to whom -  me, my family, friends, the world.  I just don’t know.  This, of course, is silly.  Of course something is going to happen.  Things happen everyday.  So what is wrong with me?  Have I finally cracked?  Am I just anxious to finally finish the paperwork that stopped me from continuing school last semester?  Or is it something as simple as being homesick?  I started downloading and listening to different broadway soundtracks that my sister and I always listen to and sing along with  when I’m home.  This time we didn’t really do much singing.  I guess we just never thought of it.  I was home for 10 days, but it felt like just a few afternoons.

It seems silly to be homesick now.  I haven’t lived in the same house as my family for nine years.  I haven’t lived in the same state for four.  Why on earth would I be homesick now?  Especially after spending ten days with them only to realize that I’m much more sane when half the United States are between us.  Don’t get me wrong – I love my family and I talk to my sister more than once a day (sometimes ALL day, literally over ten hours at a time!), but I’m happier in California.  I have a life out here.  I have friends and a boyfriend.  Perhaps it was all the questions what are you doing?  when are you going to come visit again?  what are you going to do after school?  are you going to go back into the Marine Corps?

I’m 28 years old now and when I go home my childhood friends are gone.  I keep in touch with Cara, but even that is difficult since her parents moved and she has a two year old and one on the way.  I have a new baby nephew now.  My other nephew is almost as tall as I am and my niece is almost 8.  My baby sister has a boyfriend and my little brother officially moved into his own apartment.  What happened and where was I when it did?  Leaving this time was harder than it has ever been before and I can’t figure out why?  I like my life in California, but I am sitting in our living room that looks like a Libby-nado hit having a panic attack so bad that I can’t breathe and all I can come up with is that I’m homesick more now than ever for no reason at all other than I miss home even if it has been ten years since I lived there and I have a life here.  I am tired of missing things and coming back this time I realized it was by choice.  I couldn’t blame it on school or the Marine Corps or anything other than I like living here rather than Indiana.  I wish I could split myself in two so I could be part of both worlds.  Well, I guess until I can figure out how to clone myself I’ll just have to live through panic attacks until I figure out what is next.

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