Dear O;

Moving really is hard. Even when you’re old enough that it’s a mutual decision with you, yourself and I it’s still really hard. I never expected it to be this hard though, I never thought starting over would hurt this much. This was my decision though and it’s something I have to learn to live with. It’s not reality to come running back home every time something bad happens or life throws you a few obstacle. I mean, I can’t keep doing that. I depended on you my entire life and now I’m on my own. I have to learn to live with that, even if it’s the hard thing to do. I think I can make it though, I think.

I used to make fun of the kids at summer camp who would whine about being home sick for mom and dad. I used to tell them to suck it up and to get over it. They could deal without their parents for a week or so. Looking back now, I realize that I was really a mean kid. To tell someone to suck it up when it comes to the people who gave birth to them, brought them into existence, raised them? It’s just mean, I was mean. It was not until I was sitting alone in my apartment, surrounded by silence, that I realized I would give anything to come crawling into bed with mommy and daddy. That was my comfort, there was my comfort, like I used to when I was a kid and had a bad dream. I just wanted to be around you two for comfort, to feel your presence and to know that no monsters were going to crawl out from under the bed or the closet. They couldn’t because I was with my mom and dad and mom and dad were invincible. I felt safe, like nothing in the world could ever hurt me, and for the first time since I can remember I wanted that back. Funny, isn’t it?

Probably the hardest part of this entire ordeal has been the silence. Remember when I was a kid and I would whine that everything was too loud, that I would anything for the entire house to just shut up? Well, I finally got my silence, and it’s eerie. It doesn’t seem natural even though silence is completely natural. Maybe it just takes some getting used to, but a month later and I still think it’s too quiet. I open my window to listen to the sounds of what is going on around town, but it’s not the same to falling asleep to bodies moving from room to room, or dad’s snoring that was so damned loud I could hear it through my closed door. Those little things, that comfort, it’s all gone and it’s just weird. Someone told me to sleep to music, but it’s just not working. I sleep like utter crap here because it’s so quiet. Again with the irony, it seems to be coming in a steady stream in the adult world.

I almost want to retrace my steps and go back a few years. This entire concept of college and living on my own is frightening, to know that I am responsible for my own decisions, it means that I can very well do a wrong and that wrong could effect more than just me. I can’t say “mom and dad made me do it, my parents made it do it” because you didn’t, you didn’t do or say a thing, it was all me. I almost want to get away from that responsibility. It’s too much for me to handle on me own. After all, I’m still a kid at heart, though I have to wonder if the entire college experience is nothing but a bunch of irony. I used to talk about wanting more responsibilities, now I get them and I don’t want them. Did I miss the memo where someone told me that all of my life experiences would end up ending in irony?

I even miss those snot nosed brats I went to school with. Grade school had a structure that I liked. I would do the same thing each and every year. Wake up at the same time, start and end at the same time, this entire new experience is kind of throwing me for a loop. I even took comfort in knowing that I would see the same people every year. I can’t believe I’m even saying that I’m missing the people that made my life a living hell all of those years. The people I cursed on a daily basis, the people I would glare at in the hallways, I can’t believe I actually find myself missing them. It’s not like I peaked in high school like most of them did, I’m going somewhere in this world and I know it. So why is that I miss the people who are pumping my gas now?

It’s so weird, I really don’t get it. It’s like I can’t make up my mind. I get freedom and I want it taken away; I get responsibilities and I don’t want them; I get silence and I want noise; I have my own life and I want it to be dictated to me still. I look to you when I want an answer, I look for the yes or no, I look for the pride, when I really should be doing all of this for myself. Living for me, that’s what being an adult really is, isn’t it? To live for myself, to understand, comfort, take care of myself, that is what growing up is really all about.