I've been staying up later and later into the night over the past couple of weeks. I lie awake on my computer listening to my roommate's snores start every night at nine thirty, reading forums, talking to people, reminiscing. My move to Austin has prompted me to question just about everything in my life. For my first semester, I was largely without that which is most important to me, my family. I'm glad that that will no longer be the case. Being on my own, making my own decisions, trying to be a semiadult is a very strange thing to me. Sometimes I feel like I am still an infant, grasping at communication, just learning how to walk, realizing that things exist outside of me. I see my little brother as a mirror of my development. While he is learning to literally walk upon the ground, I am trying to learn to walk through my life. He is learning how to speak, I am learning how to communicate as an adult. He starts to have some idea of continuous existence while I realize that some of the people I love and care for most have their own lives, are their own people and may have moved on without me and no longer consider me as an important part of their lives. It is a normal part in the development of a person, to learn to accept that some people let go and move on, and to cling to those that don't, but it sure doesn't make it much easier to deal with. I find myself spending most of my time reading, studying, and feeling nostalgic. I am somewhat disconnected from my studies. While I consider myself dedicated to them, I do not feel a connection with them like I do with other things, and that worries me. I wish I could make enough money playing music on the streets to support a family some day, but I know this isn't the case, so I instead am learning to engineer cells, alter the very fabric of human life, and build nanomachines. I make art, doodles, drawings, sketches, songs, and I am never very satisfied with it, but in the words of an immensely wise man, "Creating is the only point." In the absence of family, as I lay alone in seemingly endless nights, creating gives me a fulfillment, a genuine happiness that few other things can give me. Breakfast with one of my best friends, laying with my brother, hiking and talking with my dad, having hours long conversations with my stepmother, and creating art and playing music. Something connects these things because they all give me a certain sense of belonging. They all make me connect with that which is most human. And in doing so, I am fulfilled.