Skyping with Laura

I Skyped with Laura for what must have been a solid two hours the other night. We laughed, we cried, we covered a lot of ground. The conversation represented all of my reasons to want to go home, and all of my reasons to stay abroad. She didn't have an accent - except for that little extra bit of country earthiness. And talking to her, mine returned to normal from a deviance I hadn't noticed it had attained. We jumped right in, wasted little time with trivialities - you can do that, when you've known someone for longer than a single semester. We spoke frankly and confidently, trusting the language and the culture enough to know we could express anything we wanted, and that what we were expressing was what we wanted. It looked so cozy and insulated in Laura's house, and the walls were a familiar, comfortable, safe drywall white, and I wanted to sink my toes into the carpet. Laura's got a boyfriend and a new puppy, and I don't have the stability for anything like that... and sometimes I think about it.

Laura hasn't done much this semester, except long drives up to see her boyfriend, and homework, and work, and glee. That's what I gathered from her facebook statuses, but I didn't really how representative of the total they were. She brightly adds that she had lunch with other Laura a few weeks ago. That counts as an engagement nowadays. When I was home I was often the one kicking them out the door, so maybe things would be better if I was around. Or maybe not. They're settling. There are advantages and disadvantages to that, I suppose, but we have all the rest of our lives to fossilize. You're still young, I want to say, and still a student. Go break yourself against each day as if life's a demolition derby.

And that's why I'm abroad, until further notice.