When time stands still

Something Ashley said over the weekend, when discussing how unusual beach weather is for us in November: "It feels like time is standing still here. Like I'll get back to Tennessee and it'll be August 23."

It's strange how true that is. My whole time here has felt like a huge vacation, even with the few days I had actual coursework. Maybe it's because half the courses won't actually count for anything, or because the ones that do are really easy. But everything is so carefree and easygoing, and I don't feel like I'm doing any work.

And it's not just the relaxing state of mind here. Everything is so different, yet I've settled into my routine and this city like anything else. It doesn't feel foreign, but the fact that I know it is only adds to its unreality. This is not my real life; therefore, my real life must be on pause. I will go back, as I have before with every other vacation, and not much will have happened in my absence.

Of course, my second longest vacation was only three weeks. When I got back, it was still summer, and the things that had happened didn't seem very important. It was still summer, the sun would still set late, my friends and I would still stay out until 3 a.m. every night. Life picked up pretty much where it had let off.

Now, when I go back, it will be winter (though that might not mean much in LA) and all my friends will still be in school. They will have spent an entire semester without me, and maybe they missed my presence, but more than likely they adjusted long ago and forgot to even notice.

I think the reason time seems to be standing still, even more so than the unchanging (okay, barely changing) weather and surreality of it all, is the fact that we, as humans, are inherently selfish and unable to comprehend most things bigger than ourselves. And our worlds, my world, revolve around us. What happens when we can't see it, aren't there it experience it, well, it ceases to exist. We know that's not really true, but it's how we I perceive things anyway. My normal life and everything it entails are not here, therefore I can't imagine how the things in my normal life are getting on without me.

So that world is standing still.

And it'll be waiting for me when I get back, right?