"Home" Isn't There Anymore

I went home last week to see a concert and spent time with my parents for the first time since I got frost bite. 3 months roughly. One thing became astoundingly clear, it isn't home anymore.

When I did my taxes, I put Johnson County as my residence, even though it meant I owed $1 (again) instead of getting $13 back. Iowa City is where I live, where use the city services, so I wanted to pay my share. My dad didn't understand why I'd rather pay than get money back. I guess it shows our differences, I gladly pay more when I get more value in something.

So in that sense, Iowa City is where I live, but until last week I never really considered it "home" in the traditional sense. As I sat in the Chinese restaurant waiting for my Ma Pa Tofu to arrive, my parents and our neighbors down the street spent the whole time talking about health issues. Sometimes their own, sometimes others.

I have never been so palpably bored.

Des Moines is where I go to see my family. I never really felt any attachment to my Sioux City family, and I haven't to that reunion in 4 years now. Iowa City isn't home either. It's where I live and work, but that's it. My best friends are all in other places and I don't have a significant other here.

The only thing keeping me here is my desire to live in a co-op house.

It's odd to feel like you have neither home nor family either, despite their physical presence. I can't decide whether that's the adopted person or the autistic person showing through, I'd venture both play their part.

Looking back on first three years of college, two in the dorms and then apartment with friends, I don't really feel any attachment to that either. I was less bored, as there was more to do with a greater number of people, but I'm not sure I was really happy.

As an atheist I perfectly fine being alone in the universe, however I am not fine being alone on the Earth. So I have begun reaching out again, this time without such unattainable standards. I guess that means I'm slumming it...