still

not for a moment since i've been home have i felt like i've changed... until now.

was driving home in the dark on my usual route when spontaneously i took a detour to follow the quieter, slower path that winds below the freeway. i miss those drives we used to take.

at first the challenges were exciting. and then i got tired of them and missed the comfort of home. i looked forward to the moment i could come back and savor it again.

but you never really get it back, do you? that blissful naivete. i'm on the outside of the bubble now, and as desperately as i want to ignore that fact and just make things easy, i can't. i open my mouth and shut it when i realize how idiotic/pretentious/pointless i'm going to sound. i listen to people rambling about things they don't know and realize that was me, too. i'm sad for them, and for the me that's lost. i miss the people who share in that same displaced experience, but they're sprinkled all over the globe now. i've grown up and out of a lot of things, and maybe i'm ready (albeit way late already) to leave the nest, completely. but the problem is... where to?

the narcissism of our generation is too much. i complained that chinese kids are defined by money the way we used to be--but coming back i realized that we're just consumerists of a new kind. of media. everyone wants to be a celebrity. everyone wants to be a supermodel and they think a sexy headshot in their profile can help them do that. facebook hasn't changed our desires, but it's certainly given us the tools to realize them in a way we've never done before...