a place that doesn't exist

my brother can still make me cry like i'm little again and he's just hit me or something. except now he gets me over the phone until i'm shedding tears of frustration. funny how it is. we'll talk about various things, what i'm up to, what he's up to, weekend plans, when suddenly he'll latch onto some thread in our conversation and get carried away in the current of his thought, which i struggle against in vain. i think the trigger this time was that he got sort of distressed at hearing my plans for the future (involving a move to some tbd city), because he brought up these points for my consideration:

1) our parents aren't getting any younger.
2) it was hard for him to see my mom in the hospital.
3) it's nice to be able to visit our parents all the time.
4) they only see me twice a year, and they miss me.
5) i should think about this.

and then i felt:
a) selfish
b) bad
c) sad
d) guilty
e) frustrated that he made me feel a-e because of 1-5

i was mostly frustrated because there isn't an easy solution (like move home). the thought of living in LA fills me with dread, a feeling he doesn't understand. but i think i know what he was trying to get across. after being away for four years, my life seems to have become a line running parallel to my family's. maybe he just wanted the lines to intersect again.

that scene in garden state where zach braff talks about realizing when home no longer exists...it's so true. i guess that's what i'm trying to do on some level. i'm trying to create an idea of home for myself, wherever it may be, to replace the one that's not there anymore.

"You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place."