What the hell is this? Homesickness?

My eyes hurt from crying.

You’re probably thinking that I cry about everything – parking spots, furniture, gas stations…I swear, I am tough shit, but it’s the little things that take me overboard. For example, I was perfectly composed through the whole car breaking down and dealing with the tow truck thing. But that was just one of several things that compounded this week.

After a busy Thursday with a video shoot and audition, then giving tours all day Friday, you’d think having nothing I absolutely had to do yesterday would be a good thing. But, no, it wasn’t.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a morning person and the first thing I have to do in my day is the first thing I do. So on a day I have nothing to do, I do nothing. Yesterday I slept till like noon-thirty and then dealt with emails while instant messaging with my man until two thirty or three. All of this transpired in my bed! In my defense, all I have is a small loveseat. No dining or patio table. No chairs. No where else to really lounge.

You’re probably thinking, “Okay, sounds great! What’s the problem?” The problem is that I felt like a huge loser. I know me – I’m not the motivated person that people seem to think I am. I should have reread a play and memorized a scene for my acting class. I should have been learning more material about Universal, as the busy season creates lots of “stalls” on the trams and I simply do not know enough information to cover my ass. Had I been online sooner I may have gotten some extra work with Disney, I should have mailed some follow-up postcards to casting directors, dropped off my dry-cleaning or at the very least gotten some makeup on my ugly face in time to go to the pharmacy and pick up a scrip. I didn’t even write an entry on one of the million topics I have stockpiled for this damn blog!

It’s a funny thing when self-loathing pours over you – it must take massive amounts of energy to generate the most depressive of emotions, but not a single scrap of energy prevails to actually motivate you to do any of those things you’re so tormented about not doing! I just can’t help but think things like, “To be successful in this industry, you have to be a go-getter! But you’re in pajamas at two in the afternoon…”

At three o’clock my time my boyfriend got off work and we chatted via webcam once he arrived at home. I watched my cat hop onto his lap, carelessly whipping his orange and white tail across my boyfriend’s nose. I started talking about the details of bringing my cat back to LA when I fly home for a friend’s wedding, but when my boyfriend mentioned “[the dog] will miss him,” my eyes instantly filled with tears.

Everything about relocating my cat sooner than my boyfriend and the dog is selfish. There’s no sense in taking him out of a larger home that he’s comfortable in, with an old dog who needs his companionship, only to have to give him some sort of awful sedative for the plane ride, pay a pet deposit and worry that he’d slip out the door under my roommate’s feet. The tears, of course, were not just because it’s stupid to try to bring my cat here, but moreover that I miss everything – the cat, the dog, my boyfriend, my house, my parents, my friends.

I stopped crying and we talked about something else, but a while later I was in tears again. As I dwelled on all the things I should have done that afternoon my boyfriend tired to convince me that I don’t give myself enough credit… That everybody deserves a day off. Funny; he never takes one. I do see his point, but I’m not that busy - I’m not doing that much to justify such laziness.

He showered me with love and compliments and it just caused more tears to run down my face. There was no slow build up of emotion, there was no reason, there wasn’t even anything running through my mind. There were just instant tears.

Again, I’d dry my eyes and move on to another conversation… Then the cat reappeared and to get me to smile my beau sat a shoebox on the floor. After a thorough inspection my cat got in it and curled up, because that’s what cats do. It worked – I smiled. Then I started to cry.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked with frustration, “Is this homesickness?”

I don’t exactly fit my boyfriend's definition of homesick – that being that you not only miss a place and the people in it, but that you’re so uncomfortable wherever you are that you’d give anything to be back in your comfort zone, at the place you call home. I’m actually quite comfortable here; I know this is where my dream career is, and as my boyfriend pointed out, I adapt pretty well just about anywhere.

However, this town is difficult and I’ve had a really rough week. I’d give anything just to have some normalcy. It would be easy and so much more enjoyable if I had my boyfriend’s arms to fall into every night, or even my cat to curl up in my lap purring. It doesn’t matter how much sleep I get, I’m so tired all the time because no matter how hard I try or how much I do, it doesn’t seem like enough.

I don’t feel homesick, because I’ve known all my life that I wouldn’t stay in Ohio. I told my boyfriend, it’s more like the feeling I have when someone dies. That may sound extreme, but that’s what I feel. It’s an emptiness that causes tears to just fall from my eyes without any rationale and a desperate longing to “have things back the way they were.” That doesn’t necessarily mean to be back where I was, but rather to feel what I used to feel and to have what I used to have here with me now. I guess that could be another way to define homesick.

It really doesn’t fucking matter what word defines this feeling, it sucks regardless. It seems like I’ve been in tears consistently every hour or two for the past twelve hours and I’m sick of it. My head hurts, my eyes hurt and it amazes me that I even found the motivation to write this! I think I hoped it would make me feel better, as blogging usually does. The verdict is still out on this one…

Clearly the moral of the story is that I must stay busy as to not make myself crazy with loneliness.

I did get out of my pajamas and walk to the grocery store but I forgot the cookie dough that I went there for! I realized it half way back to my apartment as I sipped my Starbucks vanilla-mocha… So I guess I got my sugar fix anyway, but in terms of emotional comfort food, it was not at all the same.