Timer's counting down

Plane ticket has been booked and now the clock is ticking. What surprises me is I feel very little about it. When I talk to my mother and father they are overjoyed at the prospect of me coming home outside of Christmas time. My sister even gets giggly at the thought of the four of us all under the same roof for an extended period of time for the first time in a decade. I get amused by all this but as soon as I'm off the phone with them I feel nothing.

It is more a surprise than anything. I hesitated booking the plane ticket because I figured once the clock started ticking I would feel fear. I have always been the kind of person who compartmentalized every aspect of their life. Family here, friends over there, work there at the back. It was difficult to do growing up because my world in Maine was tiny. When I went to school in Boston it became easier. Even easier in New York and when I moved to California. Now the compartments separate themselves geographically. I've always needed to do this because I am a radically different person with each group.

I've always thought of myself as a mirror. I pick up the traits of anyone I spend a lot of time around and do a bit of a mimic. It isn't something I do purposefully, it just happens. I continue to do it because I am generally loved by everyone I come into contact with. Only recently have I learned that this is a staple of NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming. It is a form of hypnosis that utilizes body language and voice tones to manipulate a subject. In my case, the picking up of traits and assumption of them into my general body language and actions shows someone watching me that I am a kindred spirit, someone like them and therefore likable. But I find that when Maine friends meet friends from New York there is something strained about any of the interaction because the two geographical locations might as well be on different planets. Life is too different from the one to the other. I find it very hard to talk with people I grew up with now because my life is remarkably different.

I haven't decided yet whether or not I will see anyone in Maine. Nearest I can describe its like talking to someone from the 60's. Everyone has a house, wife and kids by age 25. They work the same job for 40 years. They settle into a pattern and they never leave it. I, technically, work 8-12 jobs a year. Their 40 hours a week is my 80-120 so I make 5 times as much money but have no time to start a family. I travel often so renting a house or apartment makes much more sense. I never know where the next big money gig will show up so I keep myself liquid, always able to sweep everthing into a small storage unit and abandon it if the need arises. So talking to a friend from high school, one who 16 years ago would have been like a brother, is now a lot of sports, nostalgia and surface talk about how their life is. It's difficult to explain to someone that the amount of money I spend drinking in a month would pay their next three mortgage payments. Two different planets.

The one thing that excites me is nature. I haven't really been out in nature for a very long time. My parents house is surrounded by 18 acres of forest. It is the secluded house in the horror movies, the one where someone is lurking in the impossibly vast expanse of forest that cuts them all off from any hope of rescue. Add to that the fact that it's on an island about a mile off the coast and you get a recipe for some amazing freedom. There are no surprise visits, hardly any interaction with the scattered few who live there. There is just peace and quiet. My mother was complaining when she looked out the window today that there were four deer eating from her garden. This doesn't happen in the valley. And the air is so clean. Every breathe is thrilling.

I've let loose the reigns of this ramble at this point, it goes where it will from here on. I guess the overall thought I was having was that it is a small wonder I'm kind of excited to be going back. I still haven't decided on whether or not I'll see anyone but I suspct it'll go like: I'll work my ass off for a week on the house, the writing and the exercising. I'll get incredibly bored and during week two will put out the apb to all those I have called brothers in the past and we'll meet up. We'll shoot the shit abouttheir lives and families, they'll demand stories of celebrities and what really goes on during the tv shows I work on, I'll completely go back on my swearing off of beer and we'll have a raucous good time. We always do. Then I'll go back to the island and return to solitary.

The thing that shocks me more is that I know there is nothing in California I will miss with the lone exception of D. I don't know that this place will ever be home when the only thing that tethers me here is a paycheck. I have a sneaking suspicion that upon my return things will change for me, all for the better, as the rewiring process takes hold. The pieces of the life I want to have will start to click into place, one after another.

And with each new piece a greater happiness.