I walked into my hometown church and no one knew me.
They recognized my comparatively unchanged appearance and assumed that the boy who had left in August had returned, largely the same, yet with the addition of some mildly diverting anecdotes.
While they chattered and commented on a fictional height increase, the man inside went unnoticed.
They noticed the inches I had not gained and ignored the manhood I had.
Bon Jovi's slightly-known song, "Who Says You Can't Go Home" asks the question in the title. In response I prefer an answer:
Humanity says I can't go home. Every man who walked up to me at church and asked "How was college?" says I can't go home. Every woman who smiles vaguely while inquiring about my college says I can't go home. None of them could give a used tissue for the man I've become and, more disappointing yet, I would not give a used tissue for the person each one has become. Whatever connections once held lie severed by harsh reality. Only my family cares and I am not even sure of them. I have moved beyond them and they have moved beyond me.
Every time I try to tell someone a story from college his or her eyes glaze over. Even my best friend nods absentmindedly and says, "yeah, well..." and changes the subject. Formative experiences, fundamental changes, and existential crises go unmentioned in the annals of my memory to be replaced by the numbingly endless small talk.
In my mind I see these petty little people asking me petty little questions and I pity myself and them.
And as they ask those same petty little questions, they look at me and pity me and think my a petty little man who thinks his run-of-the-mill adventures extraordinary. They look down on me as I look down on them, our mutual scorn lost in the flurry of meaningless small talk.
And then I sat and stared at the words I'd just written and felt the truth of them and felt the realization of just how terrible a person I am. And I tried to explain to myself why I acted so.
This scorn, this patronizing smile, it hides in all the pain of loss. Every time I belittle my former best friend's times while I was at college, every time he returns the favor, we look each other in the eyes and ask the same question over and over again. "Why did I lose you?"
We have grown through pain and loss and cannot return to the naiveté we had before. We've known life without the other, know it to be possible and pleasant. We know we no longer need each other and so we stand there belittling each other, hoping to con our minds into believing for a moment that the other was not once the closest friend a boy could have. And now this man must lose his boyhood friend, must grow, must live.
No, I can't go home.
No, this is not home. But it used to be.
