Where I get sentimental

Most nights around 9:00 I sit down with the intention of doing school work until sometime between midnight or 2 a.m. And most nights at bedtime I realize that I've accomplished pretty much nothing. Tonight, for example, I was going to attempt to complete most of my research for this pointless Latin American theatre group project I'm working on (I can't adequately explain just how much I hate group projects) since I also have to come up with a creative paper topic and write an abstract for that class for next week as well and since the first draft of my major research paper in another class is due in two weeks and I haven't so much as touched my stack of reading for that paper since I turned in my literature review three weeks ago. And my other two classes don't stop in the meantime (unfortunately). In short, I have a lot of crap to do. So what did I actually accomplish tonight? Well, I read the play I needed to read for the group project and made a list of discussion questions. That's it. I guess that's something, at least but it's nowhere near what I could have accomplished. The only time I ever actually accomplish anything is when I have to because it's due the next day. So far this system has worked, but I can never stop thinking that if I'm turning in passable work (even good work) when I'm procrastinating, what could I do if I actually worked on things a little bit at a time instead of always rushing and cramming and scrambling at the last minute?

I know this is boring and I promised I wouldn't just use this to bitch, so I'll change the subject.
You know what was so much fun? My weekend in Fort Worth! I got to spend the weekend with my best friends, and it was wonderful. I got kind of sad on the drive home, though, because I started thinking that it's really only a matter of time until I can no longer visit all of my closest friends in the same place. It's so convenient for me right now. I can drive to Fort Worth and spend time with the people that know me best. Pretty much the only person that I'm truly close to these days (not including family) that can't be visited in Fort Worth is Mike, but since he was never really part of my life in Fort Worth in the first place that's as it should be (he was still part of my life while I was living there, don't get me wrong, he just wasn't there physically). Eventually, though, I know Kymberli will move to New York, and Jenny will get a nursing job out of state and move away, and Jorge is talking about moving back to Dallas (which is close but just not as convenient), and so on, and soon the only people left to visit in Fort Worth will be Katy and Scott. And I'll go there to visit them, of course, but I think that's when Fort Worth will stop feeling like home to me. The day I can no longer gather a dozen people I know to hang out at the Pub will be the day Fort Worth really becomes a part of my past instead of my present.
That's the weird thing, Fort Worth still feels so much like home. Last week when I was in class and people were asking me about my weekend plans I kept saying, "Oh, I'm going home for the weekend," and then having to correct myself and say, "Well, not home home, I'm going to visit my friends in Fort Worth." But so much of me is still there that it feels like home.
And yet I feel at home here now, too. I don't have friends here in the same sense that I have friends in Fort Worth, but that's to be expected. I haven't even been living here three whole months yet, and I'm slow to truly warm up to new people. But I'm getting warmer. More importantly, this is home because this is where I relax. This is where I kick off my shoes and let down my hair and engage in the "secret single behavior" that I'd never do in front of anybody else. It's my own tiny corner of the world. It makes me happy.
To complicate things even further, even though it has been more than four years since I lived there year-round, El Paso still feels like home, too. I was raised there, how can it not? And as long as my parents are still there, and maybe after they are gone, El Paso will still be home.
So now I have three cities that bring the word "home" to my lips whenever I start to talk about them, and that's a good thing but also a bad thing. I don't feel anchored anywhere. That's not meant to be a depressing statement, it's not even necessarily a bad thing. It's just a truth of my life right now. I feel a bit like Largeman in Garden State. When he's in the pool with Sam and it's so sweet and she has her head on his shoulder and he says, "You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for you kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place."
And I think that's so true, that the only way to feel anchored again is to eventually have my own family, however that ends up happening. Which is both appealing and really scary at the same time. I mean, I'm nowhere near a point where I feel ready to settle down with someone for the rest of my life. Even if I'd already met a person I could envision spending the rest of my life with (and I'm not sure that I have...sometimes I think that maybe I do already have that person, but I'm not entirely convinced at this point...) I wouldn't be ready for marriage yet. The thought of it makes me feel a mild sense of panic. But at the same time...there was this really weird moment this weekend, when Jorge and I were talking about his niece and I said, "No babies for me!" and he said "Why not?" and I said "One day, hopefully. But not soon, I'd be a terrible mother right now," and we both laughed and went on to talk about other things. I'm well aware, though, that that is what I want eventually. Someday I do want a man to put his hand on my stomach with the knowledge that our baby is there. That's a dream of mine, more so than any of my career ambitions, however politically incorrect that may be these days. But I also know that I don't want that any time soon, even if that does mean I drift "homeless" for many more years. Still, I can see that drifting is only going to be enjoyable for so long. And maybe the fact that I realize that means that it's already wearing a little thin.

Well damn. This entry certainly didn't go where I'd intended it to go.
Maybe next time I'll slay you with my attempts at humor.