The fact that I adore you is just one of my truths

The beginning of summer seems to be the longest beginning of any set time. Sasquatch, finals, packing, and goodbyes all followed by hellos, unpacking, job searches, and the feeling of impending weeks ahead to fill before what we've anticipated so dearly is over. This year, unlike any summer before, I experienced the "coming home" phenomenon. Surely you've heard of it before. It's written about in books, talked about in movies, and anticipated by any mildly sophisticated and sincere group of friends. The way I always understood it was that we, as products of our parents and the 21st century, leave home after high school and sooner or later we must return, at which time an emotional avalanche rushes over us. I assumed that my avalanche would involve a feeling of emptiness and disappointment as all that I associated with the idea of "home" would be changed or gone. I wasn't right, but I wasn't wrong. My first week living in Eugene and missing home, I realized that "home" to me had nothing to do with my parents' house. It wasn't my bed or my couch, nor my candles or CD collection. "Home" was Portland. It is Portland. It is the lines leading to street carts along city-size sidewalks. It is the white lights glistening behind trees' branches along 23rd after dark. It is the Pearl room of Powell's where I sift through books after spending my last bit of cash at Jackpot on used albums out of dusty racks. It is Moses two rows in front of me on TriMet, wearing the only suit I've known him to own in the last three years. And it's always been bowls of ice cream in Kristin's basement with Taylor and Super Mario Bro's 3. Proudly, I can say that my home remains as I left it.

Yesterday I experienced another first. After spending the weekend in Portland with the boy that I adore, I had to kiss him goodbye at the airport. The whole time knowing that the five days until I see him again are going to drag, and drag, and drag on with missing him, feeling more like a month than a week.