Alex Haley's Roots...not quite, though

I had already begun to feel alienated in my hometown.

However, as they say, you don't know what you have until you lose it.

I came to the US at the age of seven. I lived in the same town up until I came to Lincoln for college, but I still went and spent any vacations I could back in that little ol' Texas town.
So for all intents and purposes, Keene was my hometown: where I grew up, had my first crush, broke my first bone, made friendships that I still hold dear, and became a sort of celebrity--appearing in the newspaper almost weekly for four months out of the year in my singlet and short running shorts.
I know those streets forwards and backwards. I ran them virtually every day for six years. I accumulated enough mileage on my legs and those paved roads to go to California and back. I can truly say I know those streets.

After high school, it didn't feel the same. All my friends had gone and I no longer ran so devotedly.  The place was full of people I did not know.

Still, it was home. Somehow.

Now that my parents found a job in a city five hours away, I know that I will very rarely ever again go back to that speck on the Texas map. What's more sad is that I never got to say good bye to the house, to those streets, to my school, to the few friends still there.

While I am a Guatemalan and will always be proud to be from there, my roots are in Keene. If I went back to Guatemala I would have no friends, and I would not know the streets.

Same in the new place. I do not know ANYTHING.

I remember talking rather prophetically to some friends about how life goes on. I said during that interchange, "I don't plan on living in Lincoln, but I can see myself living here if I got a job or something like that."

Now, I see that Lincoln is my new home. I don't really like the sound of that, but it's the only place where I have friends. The only thing that is missing is my family.

Needless to say, I've been homesick--the move has aggravated it, because I won't return--and I've been missing my mom's hugs and cooking, my little sister's inside jokes, my brother's insanity, and my dad's late night chats.

I feel very sad, but not really. It's a hard thing to express.