Never be the same again.

I'm setting the record straight. Sherlock is one of the best shows to have graced modern television. Thus spake Emily.

At the end of season 3, Sherlock tells John Watson of a story his brother used to tell him about a mysterious East Wind, "a terrifying force that lays waste to all in its path."

Although less destructive - perhaps - I think an east wind came to visit my house today. Or visited my life, rather.

I am currently home alone. Although a rare occurrence, I have had this experience before. Ever an introvert, it's always been a good thing. My energies get recharged, my mind and will have a chance to refocus. But this time it's different.

When I was a very young child, both of my parents worked full time, so my days were spent away from them, at my grandparents' house, with my brother. Then my family moved to a new town, in a new state. Frequently, my parents would take my brother and I back to our grandparents' house and leave us there for some quality family time, while they took the opportunity to have some time to themselves. As soon as my other brother was born, he joined the occasional routine of extended stays away from our parents, and what used to be a twosome, became a threesome most of the time. But the twosome never disappeared. The age gap between me and the youngest spans a full ten years, so there have always been situations when we necessarily parted company. Friends would invite me over for parties where it wasn't really appropriate for baby brother to tag along. I would decide to go on concert trips that wouldn't have me home until 2 AM, far too late for a little boy. But at only 21 months apart, the other brother and I rarely had reason to not be together. We experienced life's milestones at roughly the same time. We had all the same friends. Our favorite band when we were kids was the same, as was true for most of our other interests.

Not much changed as we grew. Our borders did expand, yes. We each met people the other didn't know, our tastes started branching out in directions the other wasn't travelling. But we never became strangers, and started speculating what would happen when we moved on from the lives of our parents. One thing seemed obvious: we both would need at least one roommate, so who better to share expenses and space with than someone you've been amiably, even joyfully, living with for 20 years. So for the past several years, as we each approached the end of our collegiate journeys, we've talked about one day when we would branch out to face the world alone, young, determined humans, finding their own paths in the world, yet together.

But life doesn't always work out how you expect it will.

Today, brother dear drove west, and intends to stay there for a while. And I'm looking at living alone soon becoming an everyday reality. I am making plans that will encompass seeing him in just over a week. And he says he plans to be back here for a bit in a few weeks. But today marked our first steps in divergent directions.

I'm excited about what lays in the future for each of us, but I can't help but pause over the end of one of the only consistent realities I've ever known.

I'm starting to realize how much comfort I have built and clung to around myself. I've embraced change in some areas, but in more I've stayed staunchly the same. All day long, in this house with no one but the cat, I've found myself craving familiar things, yet somehow not able to let myself be so self-indulgent. I wanted to listen to the same song over and over, but after a couple times I compulsively turned it off, even while yearning for it continue. I'm the queen of musical repeats, so why can I not let it play now? I decided it was time to make dinner, and out of all the familiar, convenient options in front of me, I chose to make something I've never made before, all the while heartbroken at the unfamiliarity of the contents in the pot I was stirring. It was delicious, but foreign, therefore not quite as delicious as it could have been. I turned on Netflix, and as much as my heart was screaming at me to turn on something I know, all my fingers were able to click was something new that I had never seen.

If I may digress for a minute, I'd like to take it back to the subject of my first paragraph. I really want to tell you I watched the first season of Sherlock when it premiered, and have been a tried and true fan since, but to do so would be a lie. With the approach of season 3, I finally decided to watch the first two so I could catch the current one as it played on TV, and not only did I become hooked on the show, I became enthralled by it's two central players, Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch, particularly Benedict Cumberbatch. That man is a gift to acting. He's one of the few people I've ever googled extensively, and I've watched hours and hours of him in recent weeks. I'm convinced that if ever given the opportunity, we'd be good friends. He spent a year of his life teaching English before he went down the path of acting, and once sang "Pure Imagination" in an interview, so how could we not get along? Getting back to the narrative in progress, when I decided I wanted to watch something, not only was I yearning for something familiar, I specifically wanted to see Benedict Cumberbatch, to hear his rich, captivating voice. Despite not knowing him personally, his presence, albeit only in film, has become a familiar friend. But I couldn't let myself wander anywhere near him today.

I want familiarity so badly. But one of the most central pillars of my life has been destabilized, so even familiar things feel wrong at this time. Rather than spoil their familiarity, I'm avoiding them. To quote what I believe is Herman Melville's greatest work, Ah humanity!

Life will continue. A new reality will form itself around me. Familiarity will return. Sometime. After all, everything familiar was once unfamiliar. But for right now, everything is still unfamiliar. And in this discomfort is where I'm going to sit for a while.