My Ohio trip was so surreal. I grew up there, I've seen buildings and businesses come and go, in addition to parts and phases of my life that give me the sense of history that I'd love to have about where I live now.

Had lunch with a good friend who works in the very suburb where I grew up, near the house of both my high school boyfriend and the woman who (though I didn't fully realize it at the time) I spent most of my time longing to be involved with. I made some comment about having gone to a park near my friends' office with my boyfriend, and she said 'how long ago was THAT?' I realized it had been 10 years. The demarcation line between that part of my life and who I am today started when I figured out that I really really wanted to kiss a girl instead of the boy I was dating. And now that I think about it, those parts of my lives really are separate, partly because I live 3,000 miles away now and partly because I am afraid/don't want to deal with rejection from the people I knew then or even the ham-handed attempts to reconcile the Liz they knew then with who I am today.

Who knew that Ohio could be so cathartic?