The Long Road Home

I'm in Wooster today, for the first time since June, and on campus for the first time since graduation. It's good to be here, but it's at least slightly strange. Things are slightly different, but always somewhat the same. The people change and the place progresses...but there is a sort of unchanging undercurrent, and it makes it feel eerily like home while being a place I've not been for so long. Sometimes you might hear the expression "you can never go home again" and I mostly agree, because home, at least as a place, will never be the same when you return. But Wooster seems to deny that maxim to some extent. But not entirely..... they moved some chairs that I had always used for long periods of reading...essentially destroying one of my favorite spots on campus... and people are so important to places, and so much of my love for Wooster has so much to do with the people, that as the people change, the place will certainly mean less and less...but there is something about being here too....there's a certain wonderful peace and a definite feeling of familiarity, even in the face of what has changed since May, that are beautiful and lovely.

I've been away from home since Monday, and it is great. I had been in Ann Arbor (which, despite the football team, is becoming one of my favorite cities) for an InterVarsity training event until yesterday, when I came to Wooster. I like being away from home, but it's a high-function sort of life right now (to a degree. today is definitely more relaxed) and I'll probably crash when I get home. But I do love seeing people I definitely do not see as much of as I would like or used to (and indeed both). It's strange, because sometimes I think of my life as transitional right now (and it is), but sometimes, I think of that as the reason that I don't see good friends with any degree of regularity. The reality of it all though, is that I'm not going to transition to a life where everyone lives close and I see everyone all the time or anything like that. In reality, I'm transitioning further away from everyone and everything than I already am. Life is a pulsing ball of energy.... it builds up then releases over and over and over. It builds up for 18 years, then releases everyone to college....then it builds up once more for 4 years, and releases everyone into the real world. Maybe that's why marriage is such a great thing...finally, in life, you find someone you want to keep for more than the building up of that energy ball, because for our entire lives, we're learning that eventually, that ball is going to release and you stand a good chance at losing everyone for long periods of time, and even then, it's never the same. Or maybe it's more... it's not just that you've found someone you want to keep around, but indeed, it's someone you feel like you must keep them around, like the scattering that comes with the next pulsation will be too much to bear, like it will destroy you if it flings that person too far from you.

That's how I feel about my life right now. It was a slight pulse I had no capacity to avoid, but the flinging was destructive and I'm doing what I can to put it back together, if I can.

I think I'm going to walk around campus a bit, because that sounds fun.
-Zack

"If love feels right
You work it out
You don't give it up"
-Tracy Chapman