I Made it Halfway

Poet laureates are halfway done, and I am five weeks removed from home with five weeks more to go.

The experiment in the past few weeks has become--dare I say it--easy. Those ever-increasing distractions like schoolwork and traveling have taken the edge out of the inconveniences by demanding more of my time and energy. In large part, though, I just got used to my daily routine, being better able to cut through the practical problems while finding myself dulled to the psychological ones. Those first weeks, the span of time from evening until midnight would sometimes put me in danger of feeling a terrible loneliness. It wasn't that I missed anyone in particular; I just missed having a place to undress, cook, to sit and stand without being anything but nothing. In another context, they call this being homesick.

So now I'm comfortable, yet the comfort is starting to throw me off. I get the feeling of slipping back into another box, maybe sized and shaped a little differently than the first, but still a box. Part of it, again, are the distractions. I have a book report due tomorrow, a midterm the next day, and another midterm the day after that. Once that passes, I will have to start doing other things. This weekend or the next I want to stay entirely on Venice beach, maybe sleeping outside on the street for a night. I have to start talking to that source for a story on the economy's effect on students. And I'll be in the process of preparing to leave this school.

The halfway point. When this is all over, my biggest fear will be to look back and realize that this "social experiment" with all its troubles was never truly incorporated into my goals, that it just served as a companion, someone to wake you up in the morning and tell you to keep going but who had an annoying voice.