Life & Times of a Literary Zeus

A trip back "home?"

The other day I took a trip, not a far trip, about 5 hours round trip. I left where I live now back to where I grew up. It was a weird trip to be honest with you. So many different sensations hit me at once. Number one, I didn't recognize a damn thing, number two, this place isn't as big as I remember it being. Lastly, the one that got me the most, things keep growing around you, even when you seem to be at a stand still.

It was so weird to drive down town 327, down the main street where as a kid I roamed with my friends. To see how many things that had changed, how some things were still the same. Cedars the café , where my ex and I sat for hours on end, talking and trying to salvage a love that was already gone. The additions, Mcdonalds, Walgreens, it is no longer a 2 light town.

The town has grown, and doubled in size, unfortunately I have grown too. I have grown out of that small town. I have gotten older and wiser, and yes I hate to admit, physically bigger just as that town has. While we sat in the Mcdonalds I looked around and wondered if I know some of the people that were sitting near us. If time and age had changed us so much that we no longer recognize one another. I looked at some of the younger kids that were either working or also eating, wondering if there parents were my old pals that I use to hang out with. Is it possible for people to grow and change so much that you might not recognize them, even though you grew up with them, hung out with them everyday and most of the weekends. It was a very weird experience, I can say that much.

One thing that I have found out about myself, is that I have to go back and see things from my past to realize that it's no longer what it was. A few months back I saw someone for the first time in 10 years. She wasn't the same person, although age had been good to her, she wasn't the 21 year old that I fell in love with. She was a completely different person. Believe it or not, seeing that made me finally get over some emotional baggage that I had held on to for way too long. I think that going back to my old hometown was the same way. I know longer miss that place, it's no longer the same, everything has changed. The people that I knew, the streets have changed, and I definitely could get lost if I was to roam.

Going back to see a town that has moved on with out me, has now made me move on with my life.