The nostalgia

Occasionally I am overwhelmed by an intense feeling of homesickness. I just feel this need to go home. Except home is here, where I live now, and the home I feel homesick for is just a figment of my imagination. This home that I long for is an idea - it's what I imagine a home that I would want to return to would be like. And this feeling - it's what I imagine homesickness feels like - though I can't say I know for sure. I am going "home" next Thursday - but by home I just mean to the town I was born and raised in. It's been a long time since I've had a home to go home to.

The home of my childhood is long gone - sold when my parents got divorced in 2000 - and the bits and pieces of my childhood that still remained there are gone also. My brother went to help my dad clean it out before it was sold. My mom had already taken everything she wanted when she left. She left behind more than one mess that needed to be cleaned up. I didn't show up to help. I can't remember why. Maybe I was out of town, or maybe I just didn't feel the need to show up. It was all thrown out - all the toys, all the finger paintings, everything. My childhood thrown away with the rest of the trash because I didn't show up to claim it. There are some photographs, my brother has those I think. And memories, that I would trade in for different ones if I could. But the tangible evidence is gone.

I was looking through old photographs today. Printed ones - before everything was digital. Now I don't even print photos, they just go onto my computer and never get printed. There were pictures of my best friend Heather and I. My graduation photos, my senior picture. I am almost unrecognizable. I used to look at that photo and see myself. Now I don't recognize the person.






And then there was this one, from 27 years ago - I was three. Little tiny me, before it all went so horribly wrong all around me. Knowing what I know now, my heart breaks for her.