Ten miles.

My school is only about ten miles away from the house where I grew up.

It feels like a thousand. Saturday night was my little sister's birthday. She turned twenty-three. This week she moved in with my old roommate, my childhood and most constant friend. They've become close since I started law school.

If I were egotistical, I'd say...somehow, I think they're using each other to fill the vast void I've left...and so on. But as I said, only ten miles away. Also, I don't think that I left any void in anybody. But really, my sister and my roommate love the same music, the same bars, the same beers, and the same mammals. They both love Domino's pizza, Clairol hair dye, and posters of teddy bears. My friend and I were always unlikely friends. Other than some difficult to notice characteristics (heartlessness, irritable bowel, suspicion of ethnic cuisine), we didn't have much in common. We are unrelated sisters, almost.

So I went out tonight with my sister, my sister's crush, my friend, and for a few moments, my brother. We went to a bar to see a local band. It was like a high school reunion. Awkward, loud, and forgetable.

I don't belong there anymore. I don't know what it is; maybe I never did. I like to talk in bars. I don't like drinking and not talking, and I'm a lousy dancer. I showed up wearing a light blue button down shirt, a black sweater, and jeans; I looked like a chaperone. I didn't drink, because I'm neurotic about bar eligibility, and I had to drive. My sister had the time of her life, drinking vodka and cran, wearing three shades of eyeshadow and three different types of petroleum based fabric. My friend was also quite pleased by the whole event.

I feel isolated all the time. I'm not quite into my identity as a law student (this blog notwithstanding). I was much more a barista than I ever was a student; I had an apron to wear, and I had friends to drink with; I threw parties. I'm not good at self-identifying through what I'm studying. It was hard for me, at Bennington, because people almost never talked about their majors; they always talked about their work.

"I'm a painter."
"I'm an actor."
"I write poetry."

Ummm...really? I was a lousy student, and a lousier whatever I was meant to identify as. So now that I'm not a barista, and I'm not a college student, and I'm not with my friends, and I'm not with my family- I'm not really anything to anybody. I don't belong in the bars my sister goes to. It's too loud. I don't have fun. I don't like the bands. I don't dance. I'm quickly becoming such a pompous, self-important jackass that I risk alienating my coffee friends.

I lack context. It's becoming quite dire.