So yeah, I'm home again. It's...nice, I guess. My brother and sister are both out of the country, so it's just the three of us. I have fun with my parents; we think the same way mostly, and laugh at the same things. But I see myself in them in weird ways, and it hurts. My mother is fragile, always close to tears about anything. I'm not like that at all, outwardly; I'm much more like my father, who shows no emotions and acts out his depression by being quiet and withdrawn.

But there's my mom in me, too, underneath. I feel so damn cold and analytical around her; I understand how her heart bleeds for every common hurt, but the dominant side of me knows you just can't be like that, not over everything. You look at the people around you, and you can't help loving them so much it hurts, even when they're pathetic. Hell, because they're pathetic. And then if you look at the pain they're all in, it's just fucking overwhelming. I think God puts in a safety valve, though, that makes it so you can't feel the pain all at once. I think the burden of it would kill you if you could actually feel it, all the messed up shit that you and all the people you love have in their hearts all the time. Shit goes down, and you think your heart's going to fucking break, but meanwhile you have groceries to buy, and checks to write, and you can't actually think about it that much, can't feel it in its entirety even when you try.

That's why art is so necessary; it gives you a release for all the pain inside. I'm pretty much unable to cry about things that hurt me...once this year we were all out drinking in the van, and I felt like absolute hell. But I couldn't make the signals to my friends, the people I love the most on earth, that I needed comforting. It felt like I was pretending, even though I really felt those things. My other friends cry when they're sad, even the boys sometimes. But I only cry when I'm watching a movie, or listening to music. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what my dad does.