if only i could see the stars.

i have unusual sleep patterns.

for example, since the fourth of july, i have stayed awake until usually between 5:30 and 8 am, and then i sleep until 2-4 pm. generally.

it is hard to explain to people that i genuinely like to stay awake all night. it is the only time that the building is asleep, and it is quiet. i can concentrate. i don't have to worry about the phone ringing, people screaming in the lobby or knocking on my door, or random people roaming my hall. i like the peace that being awake in the middle of the night gives me.

i always have my window open. i like hearing the crickets sing all night long, and just before the sun rises to greet me, hearing the birds chirping their morning songs.

i've seen more sunrises this month than i probably have in my entire life. it makes my heart just as happy to see the light beginning to peek over the side roof of south as it does to see the pinks and oranges sink behind hathorn and cresswell. my window frames my perspective.

also, it is proving to be good practice for later on...if i get a morning show job next year, i'll have to be awake and alert at this time anyway.

my only issue with staying up all night is that the rest of the world doesn't operate on my new schedule (which would defeat the purpose, of course). but then i have phones ringing and fire alarms and people needing me and places to go and appointments to keep all day, and i end up cranky and exhausted, with only about 30% of my brain working by 5pm. then i sleep till about midnight, and the process begins again.

however, with training starting in about ten days, i have to orient myself around the world again. my heart is saddened by the loss of those nighttime hours, the cricket's song, and dawn breaking over the world.

"was it inevitable?

was there some quota of sadness that had to dealt to every person? was that just the way love worked? because that was the underlying problem - without love, there could be no real pain. love contained within it the seeds of loss and bitterness and grief.

love. it was just like alcohol. a little fun followed by a long, painful hangover."

homesick.

i went home for the fourth of july.

i walked outside the first night i was home, to move a car out of the driveway, and it was so dark that i was absolutely stunned. first of all, the fact that the dark can render me speechless is very, very sad indeed. i guess i never realized how constantly lit my world was until i was back home, in the middle of the woods, where there is probably only one streetlight in my whole neighborhood. but you know what? i could see every, single star.

i went shopping with my mom the next day, and we spent hours in town getting things done and running errands. HOURS. i, again, was floored. because here, running errands can be done in a single store, and it only takes ten minutes to get to walmart. even when grocery shopping for the first time in a month, for two people, it only takes a little over an hour.

later that same night, i was reading in my room long after everyone else had gone to sleep. i got up to go use the bathroom, and again was astounded by how dark everything was. i had to navigate my way to the bathroom using familiarity of the house, which was once second nature, but now a foreign-esque concept, because my hallway here is lit up with emergency lights at all times.

settling back in bed, i turned the lights off and stared at my make believe galaxy constructed of hundreds of glow in the dark stars and planets stuck to my ceiling. i can't remember exactly how old i was when we discovered those, but my brother and i went crazy sticking them to everything. well...he stuck them to everything (including furniture) but i wanted all of them on my ceiling, all OVER my ceiling. my reasoning was that i rearranged my furniture so often (and i did, usually once every couple of months or so) that if i only put them in one spot, i couldn't see them from wherever my bed was to go next. so we put them all over the whole room. and these aren't the hard plastic stars that glow, these are plain, almost invisible stickers. on my ceiling, which is painted white, you can't even seem them until the lights are turned off. then it's like you're in another world. annnyway, i settled in bed and was looking at my galaxy, and i heard something. or rather, the lack of something. crickets were singing their little hearts out just outside my window, and i could hear the whistle of a train horn as it was coming down the tracks across the highway. other than that, i realized i was hearing a blissful silence. something i never get to hear at school.

had i really been away from home so long that all of these things surprised me? starkville isn't exactly what you would call a big city...or even a small city, at that. but living on campus is like living in a tiny little bubble in mississippi. i felt like i'd been living in a town so long that coming back to the country of alabama was like coming to another world. it was a welcome relief. a change of scenery, one i desperately needed.

i woke up the next morning with a sore shoulder. having most of my stuff away at school does have some drawbacks, i suppose. maybe you don't know, but my shoulder pops out of place at will. it doesn't hurt, but it feels and sounds gross to my friends. the only time it ever bothers me is if i sleep wrong, and my shoulder pops out and presses into the mattress overnight. then i wake up with stiff shoulders, and they ache all day long. without my regular pillow, i'd managed to pop my shoulder out overnight, and sleep with it that way.

but oh! what a small price to pay for the comforts of a home! to share a shower with two people instead of forty, and to not have to wear shoes! to have a kitchen with a full sized refrigerator, and a stove to cook my sweet tea on (because every self respecting southern girl knows how to make sweet tea), and a kitty cat to hug even when he is hot and grumpy and doesn't want to be hugged. a place where friends have been friends for a lot longer than your school semesters...even when they do silly things like fly to los angeles with people you've never met without telling you first.

it's been two days since i've been home, and i do miss all of the things listed here. i am also glad to be back in my own space. my room here is bigger, but it contains all i own in this box of living space. it's not quite the same as a home...but my bed is more comfortable. i'm not sure what that means, exactly, but if you figure it out, let me know.