(no subject)

[oyceter]

yhlee, I got your package! Thank you so much! And the chibi voodoo dolls are the best thing ever!

It's raining here again, after two weeks of 80 degree weather, and I miss the sun dreadfully.

Last night it didn't sound like California at all. The howling wind and the rain beating against the walls sounded just like Taiwan, and it was strangely comforting. Of course, it was more comforting because I was in my nice, cozy apartment, as opposed to running errands in the thing. I adore California weather, but a part of me misses the wetness of Taiwan, the howling winds going past the window, whipping all the tree branches so you could see the vulnerable underside of the leaves. For some reason, I particularly miss the sound of the wind, especially when it got so loud it sounded human.

I even miss the typhoons and sitting inside watching the world go grey against the bright green tropical plants. I got a sense of that driving to work today -- there were giant blue-grey clouds rolling overhead, but the fields were bright spring green because of all the rain, and the contrast between the dark sky and the bright grass was very different from standard California scenery.

I've also been rewatching Angel S2 and S3, as well as parts of S1, and I think that (strangely) contributes to my sense of homesickness. I feel so warm and fuzzy when Angel and Cordy and Wesley are all interacting together, and that's what I miss the most about the later seasons. I suppose that's rather like Buffy as well, but while I love the Scoobies, I don't feel the same fuzziness toward them. It's all because I watched Buffy starting from S5, whereas I watched Angel in order. My nostalgic Buffy moments all come in S5, which is a bit weird.

The move, while good, is also hard. I hate change. I spent eight years of my life in America, in one house, and then we up and moved to Taiwan, which was traumatic. But I had another eight years to get accustomed to Taiwan, and in Taiwan, connections keep. A lot of the people I still see over vacations and the like are people who I met when we first moved back. I've seen them grow up, and they've seen me through braces and puberty and high school and parts of college and now work. I've lived in the same apartment all through Taiwan. I was so homesick when I first went to college -- not just moving away from home for the first time, but the change and the culture shock. I ended up losing 15 lbs. because I just couldn't eat. Not being able to eat is very disturbing, especially when I like food.

I also went to the same school for eight some years. My school in Taiwan was so small that it was about 400 people, grades 1-12, and everyone stayed in the same building. So there wasn't a big change when I went from elementary to middle school, or from middle school to high school. And people would leave to go to other schools, but they would still visit every so often, or I would see them in California, or something. And old graduates would often visit during their Christmas breaks. I've gotten very used to seeing the same people.

And, of course, I am a pack rat. When my mom was remodeling the house back in Taiwan, she threw all my notebooks away, and I flipped out. Luckily, she got them back from the recycling bin before they were taken away, but I can't imagine having all that gone! I think I very much fear losing pieces of my mind, of my memory, and so I try as much as I can to write everything down. This is probably why LJ is so incredibly addictive. But having all these little things that remind me of other things, of events and people and places, this is important to me. It really frustrates me that all my old stuff is back in Taiwan and I'm here in California. College was pretty awful too -- moving every single year in and out of dorms drove me crazy, having to pack away things and reassemble them. That last look of the dorm room, stripped away of all personality, at the end of the year was heart-breaking. I cried for my first apartment here when I moved to the one I'm in now, even though I love the one I'm in. I am so, so, so glad fannishly will be moving in with me and that I don't have to move out. It already hurts to see so much of the boy's stuff gone, just because it is part of the apartment, and I need the physical reminder of things.

I know technically that it should be the memories that count and that the physical doesn't matter quite as much, but for me, it does. It's tangible. I can point to it and say that it exists. For someone as forgetful as me, for someone who has so many what-ifs and fancies in her head as me, this is important. It's some of the past that can be touched, and that tactileness somehow grounds me. I'm not sure if other people feel this way.. I know my mom is more of the slash-and-burn variety, for whom newer is nicer and old, dusty papers have no real place.

Comments

[thinkum]

It's some of the past that can be touched, and that tactileness somehow grounds me. I'm not sure if other people feel this way.

Oh, my, YES! I've been a packrat all my life, for exactly the same reasons. ;-)