I am laying on my bed. Its a single bed i think, with a light wispy sheet, and a firm mattress. My arms are folded casually behind my back, and i'm just letting the gentle pounding of the northwest rain lull me into quiet oblivion. A record spins on the turntable, but its long finished. Now it just spins and crackles. Its dark, but i dont turn the light on. That would ruin the moment, and moments are altogether to hard to find again. I am home. I am not in Germany. I am not drunk or stoned, and i am not thinking in a forgein tongue. A light wind weaves through the room. I'm not sure where it comes from, but it carries with it the smells of Germany. It teases my mind, and for a moment i am back there. I have no worries, no agenda, no fears and no plans. I am living the essence if life. Or not, but that varies from day to day. I am sitting on a bench with my friends. We are complaining about the calm of the moment, and somebody is taking a deep breath from a joint. But i'm not either of these places. I am sitting in my room in Germany, my mind screaming in a fit of stress and confusion. I am going home in two months... Home to the home that is no longer my home. I AM HOME HERE. But the ticket says "17 july", so i must go. Go back to a life with parents and school and jobs and consequences. I suppose its not really that bad. There is a cute girl waiting for me, and my friends will be there, but Its a niche i dont know if i can fill any longer. I have grown in the last year. In some ways I am worse, and in many i am better, but i am not the same. I feel as though i will be going again to a new place with nothing, and starting again from scratch. Or maybe i should stop stressing. Home will always be home, and the people there will accept the new me instantly. Somehow i doubt it though... I feel kinda stupid having writen this, cause having read it i can only think of a million bad high school poems. But its how i feel and so i will post it.

Home is never the same once you leave. There will still be friends who will accept you and love you like you were never gone, because they have also grown and grown in similar ways (at least this was true for me). There will be a completely different set of expectations that what you expect and outside of the house you live in the town will not be the same. It isn't high school, though it may sound that way, but you change and everyone else changes as well. Here's hoping all goes well when you go home.

one of my favorite poems: The Importance of Elsewhere Lonely in Ireland, since it was not home, Strangeness made sense. The salt rebuff of speech, Insisting so on difference, made me welcome: Once that was recognised, we were in touch. Their draughty streets, end-on to hills, the faint Archaic smell of dockland, like a stable, The herring-hawker's cry, dwindling, went To prove me separate, not unworkable. Living in England has no such excuse: These are my customs and establishments It would be much more serious to refuse. Here no elsewhere underwrites my existence.

What I like about my home is that certain thngs ARE unchanging: the lake, the stones, the trees, the snow. The great and crazy people. Even if everyone I know leaves, it will still be my home.

the lake unchanging.