And just for a time, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

Thanks, Kurt Vonnegut, for the inspiration on the title from a book I've admittedly not read.

I'm back in the concrete jungle, again living my life in this strange and weird place I call home.

I'm in the adjustment period, that period where I say I've arrived "home" from "home." It's like wearing one of those shirts that fits really well the second wearing, but when you put it on the first time you pull at it and look at it funny in the mirror all day and feel like everybody notices that it's not so flattering.

In the grand scheme of things it might not have been the most idyllic trip home - I don't feel like I spent enough time with my family, I'm not sure that I went everywhere I wanted or saw everyone I should've. In spite of my inherent hatred for it, I'm a little bummed I missed my last alumni reception at Harker.

But then I think about that and all I hear and all I see is really, really blue skies - the kind you don't see in New York in the winter - on the freeway singing along to the same questionable music I've had in the car since 11th grade. I think about eating a pizookie for approximately the eight-thousandth time. I laugh at the stupid shit we do for entertainment because actually, the Bay Area is kind of boring. I think about Christmas shining out of my house or driving or seeing movies in the afternoon or home cooked food or vintage shopping or watching Sex and the City or drinking too much coffee at too many psuedo-hipster coffee shops or laughing until I can't breathe with people who I've known for longer than I can actually remember at this point.

I hear the voices and I see the faces of my friends and my family and for every time I've wanted to say "but you don't get it" when they tell me I'm going to be fine, I can't help but be filled with gratitude that they are the people who are against all the odds, still around and still cheering for me. Even when I can't.

It's California that I miss, but I know walking around downtown San Jose that while it would be easy to be there, I don't belong. New York has taken me for it's own and I don't fit in there anymore. But these people, them I miss. Them I feel the absence of everyday, all the more when I've most recently left. If a place is it's people that may perhaps be why I was finally able to learn how to call California home.

I don't mean to say that I don't have friends here, that I don't have a support network here. That I don't have friends I love so, so very much who I know are just as there for me. I know this, I believe this, I feel this in my soul.

It helps, of course, that going home is now a vacation - no work, no stresses, no auditions, just a lot of time to eat and drink and be merry and run around with my friends. But for fifteen days, what a difference it makes to feel lighter. And, you know, warmer.

I have, however, come back recharged and ready and excited to fall in love with New York all over again.

But it was a time. It was certainly a time, moreso this time than the last. I haven't yet figured out how or what made it that way, but a time where for just a few days, everything was beautiful.