Home is where the (???) is

I arrived in San Antonio, a city I've only recently come to regard unequivocably as "home," late Wednesday, August 6. by August 12 I was on a plane for New York City. After more than 2 months traveling abroad with only the barest connections to the center of my known Weber-verse, I was thrust back into the thick of things and now back out again. Some observations I had follow I'm sure a very tired pattern for those more accustomed to regular travel, but they are all new and mysterious to me, so I shall relate them:

It feels immediately, and contradictarily, exhilirating to be back in a place I recognize and feel comfortable; and at the same time I'm hit with a very serious wave of almost paralyzing depression about the boringness of returning to the same-old-same-old. I look around and
my heart really does leap at the familiarity of mundane neighborhood landmarks, while at the same time I can't quite except that my "adventures" are over. By night time i'm sitting in my apartment, bags untouched, barely distrubing anything in my house, and collapsing into the same wasteful, irrelevant habits I fled from in the first place. I watch useless, crappy television, i play mindlessly on my computer, i consume horrid, unnatural snacks. In fairness, i hadn't
gotten to do any of these things for sometime, so maybe i was entitled, right?

but what's the use in living life more deliberately, in focusing on entertainment of substance, in avoiding opulence, sloth and gluttony when i allow myself such dalliances? I know that fundamentally changing a lifestyle is no easy matter, and cold turkey is rarely the most-prescribed option, but doesn't it seem like a logical, honest, serious conviction might stand up better against not even active temptation, but merely the first potential of such temptation? In other words, i had no junk TV all summer, and I didn't miss it. Honestly, i know this is hard to believe, but if i never saw another episode of Battlestar Galactica (much less another CSI, Friends, or the biggest Loser) I would be ok with that. but no! I caved. Davey (my roommate) can't even be held responsible - i didn't come home to a turned on TV calling me with its siren song, I had to pick up the remote.

Ok, I'm not really this hard on myself. the food and TV issues will resolve themselves when I get to New York - where I won't have cable or expendable income - but it raises very interesting questions for me about why we live the way we live in the places we live. Put another way, how much control does our environment exercise over out habits, even our personality, and to what degree can we resist this after habits and patterns are formed?

First, let me say that while i am not a unique specimen on this subject, there are some special people, or special moments, who do arise out of such long-standing doldrums as if effortlessly, thus rendering a broader application of my reaction moot. Still, for me it holds true - no matter my conviction or the logic to back it, changing things in a life i've established is nigh impossible without assistance from outside factors. is this just personal weakness? maybe. then again, none of the changes i've tried to make have been all that drastic, and certainly none were motivated by anything more than an impulse (no doctor told me to stop watching bad movies or i'd
die. I don't have waterworlditis). but it doesn't bode well for the prospect of "settling down." It also loads an enormous amount of responsibility to my first few months in New York. I want to take my studies seriously, i want to watch good cinema, i want to read more books, to stay in touch with my friends, to go to the gym.... but i believe that if i don't build all of this into the habits i create in my new apartment, they may never happen. And what about the apartment
itself? i'm signing papers on monday, and while i'm happy with the place i have, what about it (size, location, etc) will play a determining role in "who i am" while in new york?

these are all questions without answers (and not very interesting questions for anyone but myself at that), because ultimately there's no way to know, and only time will tell. but i'm just...
frustrated.... by the inevitability of it all. shouldn't i have more control over at least my inner will and satisfaction? I guess i do, i mean, obviously i do because who else could, but while the scary
prospect of being an individual among 10 million other individuals in a seething hive of humanity hasn't yet caused me pause, the daunting task of re-inventing myself (in small detail, anyway) along the blueprints i set up in Europe is a heavy weight.

then again, so was finding an apartment in manhattan, and that worked out ok so far. we'll just see how it all develops, and i'll try to think of much more interesting things to share with you in the turbulent days ahead.

Weber (on the lamb)