I often seperate my life, if I haven't told you before, into the BEFORE and AFTER. Before the move. After the move. The move is the defining event though. So it makes sense that many of the quotes I have would relate to that.
And here they are. The moving quotes:
I vaguely hoped that someone would come up and talk to me. I imagined the conversation:
"Hey. Is this your first year?"
"Yeah. Yeah. I'm from Florida."
"That's cool. So you're used to the heat."
"I wouldn't be used to this heat if I were from Hades," I'd joke. I'd make a good first impression. Oh, he's funny. That guy Miles is a riot.
That didn't happen of course. Things never happened like I imagined them.
from LOOKING FOR ALASKA
Jamie giggled, "Yeah, I guess homesickness is like sucking your thumb. It's what happens when you're not very sure of yourself."
from FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER
They looked shallow, self-absorbed. And a small, strangled part of me envied them.
from SCRIBBLER OF DREAMS
It acted as a kind of pacifier in moments like these. A reminder that wherever I went, I was still me.
from I WAS A NON-BLONDE CHEERLEADER
It didn't feel like my world. It felt more like a dream. Something temporary.
from BRUNETTES STRIKE BACK
Carmen didn't like change and she certainly didn't like endings.
from THE SECOND SUMMER OF THE SISTERHOOD
The memories have become fuzzy around the edged, as all of them do, glorified in a process that began the moment we stepped onto the plane, away from the messy success of finding ourselves.
from RED
I've wrote a lot about the move. In emails to friends, in my journal, in word documents printed up and folded and hidden. I always think - like with a few other things in my life - that I'm done writing about it. That this is it. I'm really done this time. But there are some things, things like the move for me, parents' divorce for others, the breakup of a relationship for some, that are so huge and so defining and so momentous that as much as you go over it... it never really seems over.
When I moved I would have thought it would be the first year that would be difficult. Getting settled. New school, new group of people, new neighborhood. But it didn't happen like that. Three years (or close enough) later and I still feel "in transition" in some ways. Except now the slate isn't quite so blank. I've gone through friends, forging new friendships that deflated like a balloon when you let it go before tying it. It's gotten to the point where I look around and I don't see anyone that I haven't tried (and failed) at being friends with. Some of the friendships never got off the ground, some briefly (very briefly) soared, some sort of faltered all along. And now I have all these histories with people. Guys I used to like, girls I remember hanging out with once or twice, social events where I didn't exactly make the best impression. And on and on.
Don't mistake this for a pity post, because it's not. It's just me, musing about the move. (Which, for some odd reason, I keep spelling MOVIE. Weirdness.) But I have thought maybe there's something wrong with me? Like something in me incapable of keeping friendships alive, incapable of actually making friends?
But that can't be it, can it? Because I'm capable of making friends. Really I am. Why not here though? Is it because I am inherently un-socal? Is it because I have nothing to contribute to conversations of hair dye and makeup? It's not because the first time I heard someone say they wanted to work at the Mac counter I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY MEANT... is it? I mean, seriously. Those are pretty weak and pathetic reasons. And I KNOW not everyone here is the same. So why does it seem like it? Why does it seem like there's one mold for everyone else in my geographic location and then another mold for me? And worst of all, what if it's not about where I live? What if I'm just a cynical, uggy, WEIRD girl who will never fit in anywhere ever again?
Ash's townie idea is looking pretty good right about now. (haha)