TX
I know I always pull the "Oh my god we're all growing up so fast, look back and be nostalgic" card, but tonight was the first time I've really felt the change, the shift, the big fucking transition. Things really aren't the same anymore. Not even in spirit. Not even in how much I miss them.
I spent the night hanging out at Nic's marveling at how passionless the atmosphere in that house has become. It's clean now. The carpet's no longer have putrid stains. The backyard is full of grass. The walls aren't white and/or burnt or painted over lime green. I used to run screaming and crying down that front walk, but it just seems so much shorter now. Everything about that house seems big and empty, no longer filled with the empty cigarette boxes and piles of torn up, styless attire, and useless knick knacks and trash and screaming that made up my adolescence there. There wasn't even dog hair on the couches, and as I sat down on one of them, I realized the place had become, well, boring.
My brain remembers how it was wired all those years ago though. I know I still jump back to old habitual emotions and conclusions even where they don't make sense anymore. When I closed the door behind me and stepped out off of the curb toward my car, I had this intense welling-up sensation like there was definitely something to cry about and I'd discover it soon. But then there was nothing. Just a mental note reminding myself not to worry because life was good now and that I should be responsible and sleep. I drove around for another thirty minutes or so instead. I wanted to see how much else of this city had changed since I left it.
The truth is that everything is different. None of these buildings mean the same thing to me that they used to. And while I'm usually tempted to pull it all back together and feel the same love and adoration I used to for every facet of my life here, I now find myself pulling back, reserved, steady, self-aware. I'm happy in the city. I know I have been and will be again. Why go around chasing ghosts?
Here I sit in what was once my old room, the room I moved into at nine-years-old, fresh out of England and terrified of the dark corners of this house. Only now it's not my room anymore. It hasn't been for at least six years. These are the same four walls that encased me as I poured out my heart and soul into an essay about my ex-boyfriend while listening to Jimmy Eat World, as I built forts out of blankets in which to teach my neighbor's daughter how to read, as I talked for days on end to friends I believed would be there forever. But in place of what was my room, my home, my childhood, I sit here now in a computer chair haphazardly placed in front of a sewing table with my sister-in-law's laptop resting on top of it. The only thing that's left of what was my room is a rainbow-colored fan which honestly makes me laugh a little. My mother had told me I'd grow out of it and think it was stupid and we'd just have to take it down in a year.
Tonight, I wanted to hug him, to put all the life and passion and real love I've ever had for him into my arms and around his body so he'd know that I still care just as much as I did when we were still being kids. I wanted to tell him not to grow up, up and away. I wanted to scream at my feet to take root so we could all be together forever and stay frozen in time, a picture of naive smiles and cigarette smoke on a hot day.
But my sister-in-law makes me laugh. So does Nic's new girlfriend. So does his stupid new haircut. And as hard as I'm constantly trying to stop and smell the roses and play the nostalgia card and tell everyone to pause and take a fucking minute to appreciate who we are and where we've been and what it all really really means to us that we were really friends, young and appreciative and in love and crazy as fucking hell.. My feet just won't stay planted. Neither will theirs. And it breaks my heart to see them go, but this new sensation is pulsing through me these days. It feels like tomorrow. And not like the empty promise of tomorrow I used to give myself, still foolishly waiting for the past to return, but a real tomorrow. I only hope I can grow into it fast enough to learn another lesson before I die.
San Antonio, I will love you forever. You are the one that got away. And while we are different people now, leading very different lives, I will often stop and think of you and remember that in my life I loved you more. I know I will never love another love more deeply or more truly than I've loved you, but I think the point of the going on living part is to try not to lose faith that maybe I will. Somewhere out there a fate awaits me, and when I meet it, I will tell it your name.
I spent the night hanging out at Nic's marveling at how passionless the atmosphere in that house has become. It's clean now. The carpet's no longer have putrid stains. The backyard is full of grass. The walls aren't white and/or burnt or painted over lime green. I used to run screaming and crying down that front walk, but it just seems so much shorter now. Everything about that house seems big and empty, no longer filled with the empty cigarette boxes and piles of torn up, styless attire, and useless knick knacks and trash and screaming that made up my adolescence there. There wasn't even dog hair on the couches, and as I sat down on one of them, I realized the place had become, well, boring.
My brain remembers how it was wired all those years ago though. I know I still jump back to old habitual emotions and conclusions even where they don't make sense anymore. When I closed the door behind me and stepped out off of the curb toward my car, I had this intense welling-up sensation like there was definitely something to cry about and I'd discover it soon. But then there was nothing. Just a mental note reminding myself not to worry because life was good now and that I should be responsible and sleep. I drove around for another thirty minutes or so instead. I wanted to see how much else of this city had changed since I left it.
The truth is that everything is different. None of these buildings mean the same thing to me that they used to. And while I'm usually tempted to pull it all back together and feel the same love and adoration I used to for every facet of my life here, I now find myself pulling back, reserved, steady, self-aware. I'm happy in the city. I know I have been and will be again. Why go around chasing ghosts?
Here I sit in what was once my old room, the room I moved into at nine-years-old, fresh out of England and terrified of the dark corners of this house. Only now it's not my room anymore. It hasn't been for at least six years. These are the same four walls that encased me as I poured out my heart and soul into an essay about my ex-boyfriend while listening to Jimmy Eat World, as I built forts out of blankets in which to teach my neighbor's daughter how to read, as I talked for days on end to friends I believed would be there forever. But in place of what was my room, my home, my childhood, I sit here now in a computer chair haphazardly placed in front of a sewing table with my sister-in-law's laptop resting on top of it. The only thing that's left of what was my room is a rainbow-colored fan which honestly makes me laugh a little. My mother had told me I'd grow out of it and think it was stupid and we'd just have to take it down in a year.
Tonight, I wanted to hug him, to put all the life and passion and real love I've ever had for him into my arms and around his body so he'd know that I still care just as much as I did when we were still being kids. I wanted to tell him not to grow up, up and away. I wanted to scream at my feet to take root so we could all be together forever and stay frozen in time, a picture of naive smiles and cigarette smoke on a hot day.
But my sister-in-law makes me laugh. So does Nic's new girlfriend. So does his stupid new haircut. And as hard as I'm constantly trying to stop and smell the roses and play the nostalgia card and tell everyone to pause and take a fucking minute to appreciate who we are and where we've been and what it all really really means to us that we were really friends, young and appreciative and in love and crazy as fucking hell.. My feet just won't stay planted. Neither will theirs. And it breaks my heart to see them go, but this new sensation is pulsing through me these days. It feels like tomorrow. And not like the empty promise of tomorrow I used to give myself, still foolishly waiting for the past to return, but a real tomorrow. I only hope I can grow into it fast enough to learn another lesson before I die.
San Antonio, I will love you forever. You are the one that got away. And while we are different people now, leading very different lives, I will often stop and think of you and remember that in my life I loved you more. I know I will never love another love more deeply or more truly than I've loved you, but I think the point of the going on living part is to try not to lose faith that maybe I will. Somewhere out there a fate awaits me, and when I meet it, I will tell it your name.