if these walls could speak

so as you know (if you've been following this mediocre blog), i have been home since right before thanksgiving.  i have been so blessed with this rare opportunity and ample (and i mean ample) time with my family.  it truly is a special chance for me to just focus on them and loving them and living with and for them.  and god has it been hard and exhausting and challenging.  why is that? why is it usually the hardest to be the best person you can be to the ones that love you the most; your family? i mean these are the people who know exactly how crazy i am and love me regardless. i am constantly surrounded by the ones who love me for exactly who i am and yet, i still feel alone.  i don't really know why and if i could change this feeling, believe me i would.  but lately, i have just felt lonely.

i love looking up words on dictionary.com, so since i've been throwing this "lonely" word around in this blog, i decided to look it up...and every definition given didn't seem to make sense for me. "lone; solitary; without company; companionless."  "remote from places of human habitation; desolate; unfrequented; bleak: a lonely road." "standing apart; isolated: a lonely tower." first of all, these are all completely depressing definitions, and second of all, i'm (by definition) not alone.  i'm around people all day.  in fact, some alone time would be great but of course, in the whyte house, you don't really get a lot of that.  so why is it that i feel this way? 

i was talking to one of my best friends the other night and i was telling her that i feel like a part of me has grown up too fast.  i have decided for myself to not have the typical "college lifestyle" and i think as a result, loneliness comes into play.  i'm not in the same physical place as my peers, on a college campus and therefore i'm in a different state of mind in some ways.  i think about things, that otherwise i wouldn't have nearly as much time to think about and these thoughts and emotions i think make me feel isolated from the rest of the people in my age group.  i mean for christ's sake, i'm thinking about marriage and families because that's the enviornment i'm constantly surrounded by.  i, caitlin whyte, am worrying for the first time about financial security because that's a big worry of those around me. 

i don't really even know how to say what i want to say right now. i just needed to get it out. thanks for allowing me to do that.