Belonging

Today I felt like me. The real me. My dad waking me up in the morning and giving me a hug while I'm still incoherent, the dogs jumping on me while I'm still in bed and laying on top of me, the white snow covering and shining and glittering across everything, wearing a flannel and sweater and winter jacket and hiking boots and scarf and hat just to drive somewhere, being able to see my breath, feeling my hands freezing on the steering wheel, singing loudly in my car, enjoying my singing voice again, Ihopping and eating the "quick and easy" and staying for half the day and drinking seven cups of coffee and leaving a ginormous tip, being in familiar homes and familiar places, driving myself around again, bickering and laughing with family, drinking tea, eating cutie oranges and moose burgers, listening and singing to country music and feeling that way, plugging in my car, being bitterly cold, catching up and existing with old friends, and laughing embarrassingly loud. It felt like such a ripping and tearing to leave Oregon, but the second my old mountain man Alaskan friend came and gave me a bear hug in the Anchorage airport I knew I was home. A cold, dark, late night eating taco bell and talking and talking with an unconditional friend that has been around for more years than I can count on one hand: that was something worth returning to. It all is. It makes me feel like a piece to a puzzle, like a hand sliding into a glove, or a voice in a choir: I fit here. I'm apart of a larger and and synonymous whole in this place, and every atom of my being is ringing in time with the history and familiarity that shares my same soul and tells me I belong.

11/23/11