While I watch the ocean

It was already impossibly humid when I left the apartment this morning. By the time I got on the train, I was a mess of sweat and static and greasy stickiness. Sometimes, the hardest thing to deal with living on this coast is the weather. Usually, though, that's the only difficult thing to deal with, thankfully.

That feeling of invisibility is overwhelming sometimes, though I'm so accustomed to it, I usually just let it go. But every once in a while, it really hits me hard. When everything I've said or every idea I've had is credited to anyone else, or my mere presence is forgotten when an event is reminisced, it bruises my heart just a little. But I never say anything. I never try to take the credit back. I never fight to be remembered. I gave up on doing that over a decade ago. Sometimes I wonder if I was actually there at all- if I fabricated the memories of being there or saying something altogether, because I always seem to be the only one who remembers it with myself included.

Going to Pennsylvania this weekend was a much needed getaway. The weather was perfect and being in a home with home cooked food and family, laughing and just relaxing... it actually made me tremendously homesick. It reminded me of summers in Hayward, hanging out with the Bronco's crew, sneaking into the pools of apartment complexes in the summer at night, breaking into the high schools to run around the football fields, hopping fences to get into Lone Tree cemetary to play truth or dare among the mosoleums, hiking around in the hills, crossing streams of ice cold water. The only thing different that I wish we'd had back then were the fireflies. The magical green sparkling among the trees at night.

I always manage to feel somewhat out of place no matter what group I spend time with, but this time it was minimal at least. I wonder if I'll ever really feel completely comfortable and belonging anywhere. I've never felt more comfortable or at home anywhere more than I do in my life in New York. But even here, I often feel out of place or misunderstood. I still feel slightly frustrated and cumbersome. I still feel alien and uniquely strange. And not in a good way. I've been trying to grow out of the awkwardness. Trying to ignore it. Fake it til you make it. But it's a lot of work and I don't think I'm truly convincing anyone.