I have this bitter-sweet notion of what "home" is. I've lived in this country for eight years, but I've always felt like a mismatched puzzle piece. I'm feeling nostalgic for something I've never really known.

When I was sixteen, I was a sophomore in high school and still the 'new kid' (in fact I was always the new kid, as nobody new came to my high school after me). My English still wasn't very good, and while I wasn't shy, I didn't have many friends (one or two). I was still riding the bus when everyone in my class was starting to get cars.

The music of my sophomore year is what stands out to me: I was listening to The Strokes and the White Stripes, and it's really the first time I started shaping my "musical tastes", away from all the pop music I had been feeding my musical diet with. Everybody remembers where they were when they heard that sick bass and drum line from Seven Nation Army or how familiar 12.51 from the Strokes sounded -- familiar like a favourite t-shirt or the smell of your mother's perfume.

I was a tomboy, jock (sort of, because I went to a fine arts academy and we had no sports) and had a boyfriend, sort of. I had this weird, large, unwieldy life and this crushing loneliness and inexplicable sadness. I played the drums and I played the fiddle but I wasn't nearly as talented as anyone else at the school so my music was mediocre at best.

The summer before my sophomore year was the first year I ever went to California to visit my father -- my parents had divorced three years earlier, and my father wasn't even in Los Angeles for three days until he had to fly out to Washington DC. I was left to figure out the city on my own -- a black kid in Beverly Hills, who could afford a driver every day. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and it took me a while to fall in love with the city. I'm not cool or chill enough to be a SoCal girl, but I can fake it with a smile and I have a great tan all year.

I'm not lonely any more, but I'm still nostalgic. funnily enough, I'm leaving to make my own way back home.
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From: [identity profile] kagomeshuko.livejournal.com


I'm glad that you are finding your way in the world.

From: [identity profile] agirlnamedluna.livejournal.com


I recognize the nostalgia spot on. Very eerie.

From: [identity profile] adoptedwriter.livejournal.com


Music is a huge "way-back" trigger. Mostly that's a good thing. Glad you are working on a plan.
AW

From: [identity profile] whipchick.livejournal.com


The way you use specific details here - especially the White Stripes! - makes this very vivid.

From: [identity profile] eternal-ot.livejournal.com


Cheers for making your own way back...and as they say home is where heart is...:) Best wishes..

From: [identity profile] lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com


There's nothing like a song to send you straight back to highschool, and you've evoked that summer-vacation hazy memory feel very well.

From: [identity profile] solstice-singer.livejournal.com


I'm sorry for your loneliness and sadness. I've been there, and it's no fun.

From: [identity profile] halfshellvenus.livejournal.com


It is so hard to always feel like you're just on the outside of whatever else is going on. I'm feeling nostalgic for something I've never really known. describes that really well.

What country were you in before? Did it ever feel like home?

From: [identity profile] sobota.livejournal.com


i've lived on every continent except antarctica. before america is was china...
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