HomeSick

    I feel as if I've entered into another dimension. One where my family never moved to Poland, but my parents still got divorced. Where my brother went to college overseas just to get away from them both and I stayed behind, to keep my mothers abandonment issues from growing.
    I'm in a world where I live to work, because there's nothing else that helps distract me from the void I feel slowly consuming me. Everything is just like I remember it, but a fraction off, keeping me from seeing it until it smacks me right in the face.
    Illinois is a drastically different place compared to the polish coast. Everything is flat here, extremely so. You can drive in a straight line for hours without having to make a turn and you'll still get somewhere. The stores are all lined up in an orderly fashion. All of them have the same style store front, beige concrete with occasional green/brown accents. The only way you differentiate between them all is their signs. In order to get anywhere you need a car, unless you want to walk endlessly for hours in a straight line.
    I just look and I can't help but compare it to my home. Where's the forest that can be reached in less than three minutes walking? Where are all the tree's growing out of side walks or in yards, that make building occasionally difficult but people still keep them? Where are the hillsides that make you hate walking somewhere far? The buses and trams that save you from those walks? The friendly bike lines that allow bikers to share the road with cars? Nonexistent. All of it is nonexistent.

    Everything here is contained and orderly. 

Everything there is organized chaos. 

    The two towns that I know so well are separate worlds. No matter how many times I come here I can't seem to find a nook for myself. I can't help but feel displaced and lost. Counting down the days until I get back. Sure I distract myself with food, but everything is so much sweeter here. It makes me sick to my stomach. Family is always trying to get you to stay, even if it's just a little bit longer. Thus I've learned to tip toe around the subject like a mouse hiding from a cat.
    My mother told me I should try to date while I'm here. 'It'll get you out of the house' she said, despite knowing I've been in a relationship for as long as I have. I declined, explaining I would feel uncomfortable doing that, while trying to keep myself from being sick. Just thinking about doing such a thing makes me feel awful. Dating while dating someone else that you love is cheating, no matter how my mother tries to phrase it.
    I got hired by a coffee company. I guess that's a silver lining, although I have to wait for them to do a background check on me before I can be officially hired. Which can take anywhere from three days to three weeks. I just need a distraction other than reading, watching or family. Anything to keep me from thinking of home.
    It's been a week since I left, each day I only miss him more. His smell from his sweatshirt has almost faded, making it just a piece of clothing that reminds me every night of what I miss most. My brain keeps thinking about 'when I get back.' Dreaming up scenarios where he's at the airport with my family waiting to pick me up and as soon as I spot him I can't take my eye's off of him. Or where I get home on my own and find him in my room, waiting.
    I miss him, I miss Bax. They fill a void in my heart, because they are my home. If it weren't for them Poland would be just another more comfortable place for me to live.