Just got home from Christmas the other day. I was back in Omaha for eight days, which, at the time I booked the flight, seemed like an eternity. I actually thought I might get bored being back that long. Turns out I barely had enough time to see everybody I wanted to see. As my parents dropped me off at the airport, it seemed like my dad just picked me up from it a couple days ago.

I could've easily stayed another week and been busy the whole time. Though my liver might have been too busy.

Like all nostalgic people do when they go home, the get ... nostalgic. Driving around you old haunts is always a strange feeling what you don't consider that place home anymore. I guess there were times back in Omaha where I thought it'd would always be home, that I'd never end up actually leaving. So it's weird to be back now that I have actually left.

While I'm completely happy in Chicago, there were moments where I caught myself driving through parts of midtown Omaha, looking at the vintage apartment buildings and quiet, cozy homes — quiet cozy homes I could actually afford — and I wondered. Would I be happy back there now? Could I do it? I've never really hated Omaha. Actually, I still think it's a pretty neat town. Some parts as neat as Chicago. And it's a really easy place to live. But that was part of the problem. It was almost too easy a place to live.

I realize now, that I've been away for almost two years, that it wasn't the actual town I hated, it was more the life I led when I was there. Drinking every night. Staying up way too late, on Monday and Tuesday nights, even. While I was having fun for every minute of the partying, I was always beating myself up inside. I knew I wasn't doing any of the things I really should have been doing: reading, writing, watching movies, learning something new, exposing myself to new things. I was out with friends at the bar at night, not writing, not reading, just burning brain cells. Then, of course, in the mornings I'd feel so shitty that I was taking my job, which was one that I'd wanted since I first moved back to Omaha, for granted. I was never fully focused and often too hungover to get any quality work done.

My life was a a mess, and I saw that it was a mess, and I moved to Chicago. And I have to say things have been better. Though when I go home I realize that old side of my comes back pretty easily. Whenever anybody calls and asks me to go out, I don't have the will power to say no. Once I do get out, I don't have the will power to shut things down at a reasonable hour. Come midnight doing shots, making calls, looking for the after hours party, even though I know I should just go home and call it a night.

I would always stay out late cause I was worried I was going to miss something. But now that I think about it, what the hell was there to miss? Pretty much every single after hours party I went to back home has been the same. I hustle to get beer before 1, find the party, after 15 minutes get bored at the party, then I call everybody we know to find another party that's hopefully better. And so on and so forth until I realize it's 4 a.m. and I haven't found shit that's worth doing so I finally go home. And I've wasted a night, and most of a morning, pretty much for nothing.

Which is what scares me about moving back home; I'm worried I'll fall right back into that trap.

But what scares me about my life in Chicago, I realize every time I go back home, is that I honestly don't think I'm going to make new friends like the ones I have in Omaha. I know that every time I tell people that they roll their eyes, pat me on the shoulder and say "oh, it just takes time." I know it takes time, believe me. But I've been here for almost two years and haven't even come close to meeting someone I feel as comfortable around as any of my 20 best friends back home. Back home I can go to about a dozen bars on any given night by myself and have at least one person I know to sit with.

In Chicago, I can't think of a single bar where I can do that.

It takes friends to get friends. The main reason I made so many new great friends in Omaha is because I'd met them through great friends I'd already had back home. I know quite a few people in Chicago, but only a small handful I'm really close with. Less than a dozen I actually talk to on a regular basis.

There's a part of me that feels back home with my family and friends is where I should be. After all, these are the people that I'm going to be close with for the rest of my life, no matter what. Why should I be apart from them?

But there's also part of me that felt I was missing something by being back home, and wasting something, too. So I leave and try to quell that in Chicago, which I think I've done.

I recently found out an aunt and uncle of mine are getting a divorce. One night while back in Omaha I was explaining the situation to a friend, about how my uncle (who is the in-law) still thinks he can stick around the house and live like nothing is wrong despite the fact he treats my aunt like shit. He wants to not have to love his wife, but still be with his kids every day. But you can't do that. You can't have it both ways, I told my friend.

"No, you can't," he said reassuringly.