Life: Returned Into Sand
Recently (relatively recently) I had the opportunity
to go back to my hometown where I spent the majority of my youth. My fondest childhood memories were of this
place filled with places and people that were diverse and colourful.
I had expected a feeling of warmth and comfort, a
feeling of familiarity and joy to coming back to the town that established the
foundation of the person that I am today and the person that I will become in
the future. Perhaps I expected too much
but from the moment I arrived to the moment I departed I felt like a
stranger. There was no comfort or joy
left in that place and the people had become dull and bitter. Of course I’m generalizing here and there
were some people that were the same as when I left them which in itself was a
sadness to behold.
I have traveled to foreign lands and embraced
different cultures. I have lived and
learned new things and saw strange and wonderful things. But the town of my youth had become
depressing to me. Crime was rampant,
prices were astronomically high. People
who I once considered friends and neighbours walked past me without a
glance. Hallowed places had become
hollow.
The sciences that I loved were reduced to whispers
in secret corners replaced instead with religious zealotry. The high school had built itself up into a
fortress. With large gates and stone
walls it gave the impression of a prison, not a place of learning. They changed so many street names that half
the time I didn’t know where the hell I was.
Don’t confuse my displeasure for the longing of
nostalgic days. I’m all for progress, if
there was any to be found but the people seemed to be stuck in a perpetual
state of arrested development. Tensions
were high as the common man struggled for identity and place. Time is fleeting and as the world turns
nothing is the same from one moment to another.
Perhaps one should learn to embrace this and not cling so desperately to
the past but human beings are stubborn creatures. We have a need to be connected to the past in
order to mentally safeguard our future.
One day I’ll learn how to live in the moment ‘cause
you can’t go home again[i].
There is an old saying; You can never go home.
ReplyDeleteEasy to misinterpret. The reality is though, "Home" will always be what you rememeber fondly. You can live somewhere for 20 years and still miss "home". Home truly is where the heart is.
I agree that there is both a psychological and emotional yearning for a place that made you feel like you were home. Reality is tough but the real world, established facts and factual history has little to no place where matters of the heart are concerned.
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