So about 2 years ago, I moved away. Broken spirit broken person, over 3000 miles. However, yesterday I landed for my first visit back here. And I just feel weird. Like I’m not supposed to be here or something, it’s very ominous. I constantly feel anxious.
The weirdest thing was seeing how my parents have started to age. And the woods where I used to hang out are all housing developments now. I’m currently sleeping on a mattress in my old room, aka the office now, surrounded by random shelving and printers and stuff. it’s really a weird feeling in here too.
I don’t know what I expected but I definitely don’t feel like I’m “home”. It’s like some weird alternate dimension version of home. There’s still some people I’m yet to see and I wonder how that’s gonna go. So far everything already feels uncomfortably different. Alongside that, the rose tint has also come off and I have a lot of bad memories going through my head too instead of any sort of nostalgia. Almost like the different person I was back then is still lurking here somewhere watching me.
Anyone familiar with such a feeling, after being away for so long?
For years, coming back to my hometown made me feel alien, like in a dream where everything was just slightly off. Like somebody came a rearranged my kitchen drawer while I was sleeping. Just wrong.
But now, twenty years later it, it changed. It didn’t become home again but a place that I felt a deep connection to. My friends and I are now parents. The places where we were young and stupid are no longer for us. But that’s okay.
I can never go back. Nor do I want to. But I understand my friends that stayed or returned. It wasn’t such a bad place after all.