Parents, homesickness and suffocating love.

Home sweet home.

Right.

Well, I've made it home for the big superficially 'religious' Easter celebrations (i.e. a four day weekend woo!). I thought it'd at least take years, if ever, to get over the homesickness when I'm away. But you know what? I now feel claustrophobic at home. I know they don't mean to suffocate me, but parents are just always there when you're home.

They're like that piece of furniture that you're almost certain you had put outside to be picked up by the garbage man (even if they keep telling you the city doesn't take old furniture). Somehow, it's crept back into your living room with all the audacity of a tacky orange ottoman.

Not that you hate that ottoman. In fact, that particular ottoman reminds you of all your good childhood moments, and makes you feel safe and protected. But it really doesn't match anything you own anymore, and it can be such an eyesore - the way it looks in the big picture just doesn't suit your everyday needs anymore.

But maybe you could keep it around; revamp it with a new fabric - help it try to fit in, even if the style is so out of date that it's practically obsolete.

Yeah, it's sort of nice to have it around - I mean, it keeps you grounded. And that's a feeling that can be easily lost in a world where you're just another fresh (haggard) faced student in a sea of forty other similar faces. Sometimes you just need that old ottoman to remind you of your roots - and to remind you of just how far you've really come.

Suffocation doesn't sound so bad, not when you know it's suffocation by love.