There's Something Missing...

As I sit here on my couch watching my dogs wrestle for the first time in two days I am struck with that momentary reminder of how much their moods and attitudes reflect mine. Since getting back to Illinois on Thursday (well late Wednesday night) I have avoided leaving the house. Granted Friday and Saturday night I have put on a happy face and ventured outside to see friends but then have retreated back to my bed and my couch hiding from everything around me.

Leaving Portland was hard for me but not for the reasons that you'd think. Portland is home....sure... but it's more than that. Portland is the one physical location that has filled me up when I have felt empty. I came to realize lately that it wasn't Portland itself. I mean sure the culture there is where I fit but there's more to a place being home than that. I said it in an earlier post that it was my friends that really made Portland home. It wasn't the culture or the food or the beer (though that helps) or anything else but the people. My family will always be there and that will always be somewhere I land but where my friends are, the people that have put up with my bullshit, kept me safe, challenged me, and loved me at the end of the day. They are what has made it for me.

Coming back to Illinois was one of the hardest things I have done. Being back in Portland I was reminded what it felt like to be supported and surrounded with love at all times. Even when I was being a total bitch and when everything had to be about me and I couldn't take a second to pay attention to what others were dealing with my friends still sat there and listened to my shit and hugged me, then told me to move on. I was so encouraged and reminded that the work that I have been doing was good. I felt filled up.

The second I landed in Illinois a part of me felt empty. I think everytime I leave Portland another small part of me stays making the strings on my heart feel more strained because everytime I leave it's harder to come back to Illinois. I can't identify what it is but I just know that it sucks in every single way. My plane landed in Illinois and almost as soon as I stepped off the plane I started crying. Not the like silent tears that no one knows are there but heart wrenching ugly tears that made me have to stop in the terminal to compose myself. Stepping off that plane meant I was actually back.

Illinois hasn't been bad. I'm coming up on a year of being here and it hasn't been bad. I have amazing friends, my classes are pretty rad, I'm getting awesome opportunities within region 3, but something has always been missing. I don't know if it is the sarcastic push that I was always getting at work, or the constant conversation around social sustainability and social justice, or if it was just the physicality of the people in Portland where a hug is always 1/2 second away and often not invited but given freely. I don't know what it is but I feel myself yearning and having a deep hunger for whatever it is every time I am back on the west coast, and I always get it whatever it is.

As I watch my dogs tonight I notice that as the energy has been sucked out of me the last few days, while I struggle to keep my anxiety in check and stop myself from going down the oh-so-familiar blackhole, the energy has also been sucked out of them. It's as if they know that I can't handle crazy antics or high energy, or that the slightest bit of aggression from them might make me break down. I don't know but I can see it.

I've never been someone to fall to pieces. I have been one to pent things up and just pray that it doesn't explode when I least expect it. Something about the last month has been different though. I'm not afraid of falling to pieces because there is a part of me that has been falling apart for months and I just haven't been able to see it happening. I think there is a part of me that has been broken for a long time and I have just been hiding it from myself for fear that I would have to address it if I acknowledged that it was there. I don't think I'm ready to address it yet. Maybe some day. Just not today.