The End of An Era

I'm going to start off this post properly. I'm not a writer. I'm not going to explain myself properly in this post, and I'm probably going to end up sounding like an emo little girl. But it's the only way I can express myself.

I'm back from Beijing, and in Davis. After the most intense 9 months of my life, I'm back. I think that they were the best. They were certainly the most memorable. I have never been more changed in 9 months than I have in Beijing. Both physically, and mentally. I grew up in Beijing, and entered adulthood (mentally if not legally, yet.) I have learned how to live, how to operate on my own. I understand more about the world, and how to take care of yourself in it. I learned about life, about people.

I left my friends and my family back home, back in Beijing. I may never see some people ever again. It's the strangest feeling to know that the people I have spent such a long time with, and connected with, I may never see again. That was my life for 9 months, and now it is over. How does something like that just end, with a click of a mouse, and a plane ride home?

It's surreal, almost. Like an out of body experience. Even if Davis hasn't been home for a couple of years, it is still the place where I have felt the most comfortable. It's been a waiting place for me, and in between, one where I simply have to deal until my next big adventure. It isn't home for me, but it's familiar. I look at all my things, and think, that is my bed, or... those are my books. But it doesn't feel like they are mine. This doesn't feel like my life. Neither my bed nor my books belong in the life I have created for myself over the past 9 months. I feel like I am living in a twin's life or something. But definitely not mine. I feel like I am just on a vacation, and I will be going back to Beijing, and 新街口外大街 in no time. I mean, this can't be my life now, can it?

Now that I am back from Beijing, Davis is still the same, except with one major difference. Now, it almost scares me. The familiarity of it, and normalness of all of it, terrifies me more then the unfamiliarity Beijing ever did. I'm not sure if terror is the right word, as I am not afraid to go out of the house or anything. I just don't know what to do with myself now. Don't know what to expect. I can no longer live the life that I have been used to for 9 months. Beijing felt more like home to me than any place I have ever been in. I don't know what to expect from Davis. I don't feel comfortable here, not anymore. It's more than just feeling out of place. It's more than reverse culture shock. Hell, it's more than just missing Beijing. I just keep asking myself, what am I doing here? Why am I wasting my time here?

I know that this all sounds very emo, and depressed. I'm not emo, and I'm not depressed. I am simply trying to figure out why I feel the way I do, why I can't seem to understand how to live in Davis again. I can't be the only one who feels this way. I love you all. :)