Leaving a life you are building for yourself, and returning to a life that you dared to leave while you were still trying to figure out who exactly you were is never easy.
In this new place you have made a name for yourself that is all yours, the past is erased and you are free and able to dare to do whatever sets your soul on fire. Yet, returning back to where it all began feels odd and I am trying my hardest to figure out why.
I have circled this dilemma time and time again trying to pin point my emotions and describe them in a way that makes sense, but in all honesty I believe that it won’t make sense until you begin to register that you no longer have an interest in wanting to return and relive those memories of which were packed up when you left this town to go out on your own.
Ultimately, there will come a point in your adult life in which the places you once held so sacred to your heart feel like nothing more than ghost memories; Although some will be glorious and some will be full of heartbreak, they will be memories and nothing you do will ever restore what it felt like to be living in that particular moment, in this particular town, and that’s okay.
Eventually as you wander around the town, you know, the one you grew up in, the one where you fell in love for the first time, had your heart broken, learned to drive, got into your first fender bender. In this place it’s so easy to see that everything has a past, but I am struggling to find a future within it.
Driving across old dirt roads and places that used to hold so much meaning now feel empty and dull. It’s like I’m a visitor in my own town; my own house.
It’s as if this town is the end of an old book, the whole thing has already been read. As much as I try to re-read and re-visit this book, it doesn’t feel the same.
I realize how much I’ve grown and evolved into a different person, with different goals and aspirations. There are always going to be people who stay and live in this town for the rest of their lives and are perfectly happy and that’s great for them. But it’s okay if you’re not one of them, it may make them happy, but it won't make you happy and that’s okay.
I’ve begun to feel like a stranger to this place I used to call “home,” one set of amazing parents and two beautiful best friends aside, I have begun to realize the word home itself is a subjective term. I've grown up in this town my entire life, yet returning to it feels like a vacation, a vacation in which I get to see my loved ones who remind me of why this place is called home—yet it isn’t really home to me anymore.
I refuse to reopen that closed book and reinsert myself into a lifestyle of which I hold no interest in. You see, accepting change can be a very hard task to accomplish, but staying in a place that you no longer belong is worse don’t you think?
