My fifth Christmas in NC

Using the fingers of my hand like a pre-schooler, I had to do it over three times, I could scarcely believe it. I realized today I was heading into my fifth North Carolina Christmas.
I try very hard to blog when I'm feeling up, and usually long periods of silence, I admit, are due to extended periods of feeling down. I decided to buck that habit today and go ahead and give myself leave to blog while blue.
Against all my best efforts, I am still very much homesick. I do recall how I once wanted to leave California. I was working on sustainability policy at the time, and the weight of the data I was studying mixed with the sudden deaths of my father and brother to make me feel like I needed to leave. Over the course of the last half-decade, I have repeatedly tried to distill for myself what the key attributes are that are making me miss California so much, so that I might attempt to find them here too. They are all nebulous. I can say I miss a place with real, intricate, daily diversity: a place where Cambodian, Vietnamese, Cantonese are not simply "Oriental". I can say I miss day-trips to Rodeo Beach or Lake Tahoe, the smell of salty Pacific Air and crisp cypress needles, the sun setting over the Ocean. I miss meeting people who readily speak of their mental health or their shakras or their acupuncturist. But that's not it at all.
Here in NC, I've learned about the very real difference between Eastern-style and Western-style Barbecue (and by the they mean Eastern-NC vs Western-NC). I've learned about the Scotch-Irish heritage that still imbues the culture here, and I can tell now what is so insulting about Yankees, I even feel it. We've gone to the beach many many times, and I do love the beach here--though I have to say I could never live too far from the sea, it would derail me completely. I've enjoyed swimming in warm tannic lakes too. I have gotten reacquainted with the humidity of my childhood and really don't mind it, and I've gotten in the habit of making a half-gallon of sweet tea every other day, which I doubt I'll ever stop now. I'm still exploring and clipping articles and seeking out the local truth. I've tried and tried to be part of this new place.
But my feeling of missing home is powerful and it dogs me. It wasn't like this when I left home in Hong Kong at the age of 17 to start college in the US. Or when I left the South Bay for Davis to start grad school. This is another beast entirely. Believe me, I have tried and tried to shake it. It hurts, I would not readily choose to carry this around.
I miss my people. Maybe it's that I finally came of age in California, and so that is the mold I came out of. Maybe because of that, I speak that language, I understand the people, and I just simply fit. I miss my friends, who count as much for me as family. When I got to see them this summer, it was instantly comfortable and safe. In one day I might have gotten a dozen hugs as a matter of course.
Every day as I set off to do what I need to do here, I simply exist. The landscape of our yard, of the street, the neighborhood, still don't quite seem real, as if I had just landed. I feel disconnected, move quietly around, observe others, overhear conversations, like a stranger.
The day before we moved our stuff here, when I got so panic-stricken and couldn't deal with the enormity of leaving, you said "if it doesn't work out, we'll just come back." Others told me "we'll still be here, we're not going anywhere." I think I've given this the old college try now. I want to go home.