But then reality hit me like a bag of bricks, and I remembered that I was at least a three days' drive from those old streets. Three days. These weren't just the roads a few miles away, they felt familiar, but familiarity doesn't connotate conjunction to new surrounding familiarity.
I choked back a gasp. The realization was somehow staggeringly winding. I felt my strength rush out of me until I felt cold and empty inside. I was so far from all the places I use to know and haunt. I am so displaced. I am a stranger and an outcast. I am unwanted and unwelcome and alone in a faraway land.
But it's been too many years. I can't go back to where I used to "belong" because I don't belong there either anymore. I would only be a stranger and an outcast. I might as well try to return to kindergarten. I've far outgrown it. The chairs don't fit me there, and neither does the curriculum. It's no different than the places I grew up in. I outgrew them. I've learned too much.
I'll probably never really belong anywhere again (or perhaps I could. But I hate to be in one place that long). And you know, that's perfectly ok with me. But I have my moments.
And most of the time (lately...again), I feel really lonely. So I turn to the memories of when I wasn't lonely, those times of belonging, to bring me comfort.
Wishes for comfort. Wishes and wishes.
Futile. Unnecessary. I'm just going through a rough time. The sea is stormy. I can't see ahead for the darkness of the clouds. I guess I know everything will brighten. But the sailors have dark days. It helps to write about the times when it feels like the storms will never cease.
But with the blink of an eye, it all fades. I'm staring at my chemistry teacher again. She's lecturing about acids and bases, and I'm in the front row, trying my hardest not to fall asleep...