I'm home.

It's funny. As much as I dislike certain aspects of Longview (the fundamental religious fervor, the lack of culture, the ultra-conservative bias), I've wanted to be here most of this year - and coming here two nights ago was coming home. There's just a feeling of being at ease here, of familiar and comforting things: the pack of dogs coming to greet me at the kitchen door, the pine trees reaching skyward with their needles whispering in the breezes and their christmas-y scent everywhere, the funny but wonderfully different east texas accent (thank yew... awl fields... bob war fences... and the list continues)... so many little scenes, sounds and scents I remember from 18 years of growing up.

And yet, if I decide to continue in grad school after college, I cannot come back for good.

As much as I enjoy the atmosphere of this place, I can't escape the sobering realization that there's nothing here for me. Longview has no college with a top-notch biology- or history-related graduate school program, and no job opportunities in that field within a 3 hour radius. Coming back here would mean forsaking my dreams.

And the question I'm left with is, where do I fit in now? LA isn't my home by a long shot - the culture's great, but not worth the terrible air you're breathing. As Mom said when I was driving her from LAX, "Wow, the air's so clear here... you can see for miles!" My response? "Mom, you're supposed to be seeing mountains ahead." "WHAT?!" The urban sprawl will never be my home, but rural areas just don't have the grad school and job opportunities I'll be looking for in a few years. I guess there's still time to figure it out, but it feels like the clock is ticking.

It's time to go for dinner, but I might as well post some poetry that coalesced in my mind on the descent into Dallas.

Flying westward, passing from day's brightness into night
Looking out the window for the first stars...
Yet constellations of light appear below instead -
Outlying towns transformed into Cassiopeia and Ursa Major
Microwave towers into dim reddish pulsars
The sprawling lit suburbs of Dallas, the outflung arms of the Milky Way
Such beauty there is on the ground...

And up above, Venus appears from the depths of the darkened celestial vault
Burning brightly, a beacon in the night