For those of you who don't know, I've been working at my school's library for a while now. It's been just over a year-ish since I started. It's a very simple job, but it pays for (most) of my bills so I've been hanging onto it. The problem is that I'm starting to feel myself burnout. I'm basically a middle man that the library hasn't been able to cutout of the equation. I grab books that have been retrieved to be sent to other libraries, check them out of our system and place them on the shipping shelves. That's it. But I'm just glad that I have a job. And I really don't feel like griping about it.
I think what's really been on my mind recently is my brother coming home. With the way that our timing worked out, I left to Romania at the end of July '06 and got back at the end of July '08. My brother left for Belgium at the beginning of July '08 and got back at the beginning of July '10. (For why, go to http://www.lds.org)
So, basically, I hadn't seen my brother in 4 years.
Please understand, that before I left, my brothers and I were as close as brothers ever could be. The middle child, the youngest, and I were best friends. We hung out together, joked around together, shared grievances about the dating world together and even on occasion would discuss politics (though rarely). Of all the people on the planet that I know, there are no two other people that know as much about me as they do.
As you can guess, I was excited for him to get home. I was ready for things to go back to how they were before. To joking around like we used to.
He got home, and it was great. He was excited to see us, and us him.
But all in all, without me delving too deeply into it, I feel I can say this about my recent experiences.
Having my brother come home was just another realization to me of the truth of this quote from George Webber (a character in one of Thomas Wolfe's novels):
"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time - back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."
I had thought for the longest time that my brother coming home would be a huge relief, like things would return to something that I was familiar with. Instead, it feels like I've just added to the burden on my shoulders. Another item added to the list of things that I don't understand but have to accept and deal with as life readies the next curveball to send my way.
Every day I seem to realize more and more how important moments are. There's a quote that I heard a long time ago, and I don't remember who said it or if I'm quoting it exactly right, but here's me paraphrasing it as best I can.
"Nothing is as far away as one minute ago."
That's all I really feel like saying for now.
