Buenos Noches from Belton

I am at home in Missouri right now, in the room I spent my college summers and holidays in, in the house I tumbled through all my adolescent joys and agonies in, in the state where I passed the first twenty-two years of my existence, more or less. My family is wonderful. The food is good (and oh-my-lord plentiful). Rest is nice, and so is open space and driving and barbeque.

But it is always odd to be home because I essentially become the high school version of myself again, 1990s!Cheryl, except with no homework or extracurricular activities to do and even less of a social life. I go to church; I unload the dishwasher; I watch TV with my family; I'm the last one up reading. Tomorrow will offer two shocks to this system: I'm seeing baby Phoebe Amelia Blair, the month-old daughter of one of my best high school friends, and my mom is having a retirement party to mark the end of her twenty-five years with the Raymore Peculiar School District. Time does go on. Still, beyond my family I feel unconnected here, floating, ghostly; it is comforting to follow all the rituals of my former life, but even more comforting to know I get to escape them.