Sometimes it saddens me how much life has changed. How we can never go back in time to relive moments that made us who we are today. How we may never have the same relationships with loved ones from our pasts, because we are no longer the same people who we were in the past. How you move away from the area that was once so full of life and laughter, only to return to the silhouette of those memories. How life goes on.
It has taken so many years of denial for me to reach the conclusion that nothing stays the same. No matter how much I have tried to force those beliefs, I have found myself repeatedly being let down by the expectations versus the reality. My home is no longer where it used to be, because my heart had left so long ago. Whenever I plan to go back to visit, with the high hopes and excitement of a younger me, I end up hitting the hard wall called reality. Everyone is grown and living their own separate lives. My grandparents' house is no longer the one stop that I can make and expect to see the whole family at once anymore. The streets are no longer filled with children or laughter, but rather the abandoned homes and buildings of places where I had once explored. Hell, the grass isn't even trimmed, but is rather filled with weeds, because the young boys in the area no longer make their money by assisting the elderly in the neighborhood.
Unfortunately, it isn't just the area that has changed. It is also the family.. the friends.. the neighbors. So much death has taken place, leaving family chains broken, friendships torn apart, neighbors homes either empty or filled by strangers. Who is anyone anymore? Where are the neighborhood barbecues? The parents who take turns driving the kids to different activities throughout the neighborhood? The invitations to have a random bible study session in the middle of the day? Do the new generation of children even get together and play tag anymore? Does anyone own a bike? Do they utilize the recreational center to meet up and go swimming or ice skating?
These days I don't even say "I'm going to visit home." It just doesn't feel right to call it home. anymore. It's always nice to regroup with the people I grew up with, but maybe I've been gone too long. Maybe I'm the one who's changed. Even meeting up with some of my siblings feels like a blind date. "What have you been up to?" "Where are you living now?" "When is the next time you plan to come back?" Who would have ever thought that I would ever be exchanging these generic lines with people who I grew up fighting with, sharing rooms with, playing with.. I have been so naive to think that things would always be the same, and that's my fault. But damn.. the coming to realization about it really hurts. To go from seeing someone every day of your life for 17 years, to not speaking to them for months at a time, or knowing what they're doing with their lives. These are just things that you never imagine as a child.
The point is, I wish I had enjoyed life the way it was a little bit longer. I miss feeling at home when I would visit my hometown. I spent so much time explaining to my husband how things were growing up with a large family, and have only been able to show him a fraction of what I have been talking about. I used to live for knowing that one day I would have children who would get to experience things the way that I had the chance to do so. I used to believe that all of our future children would grow up together close in age just like we all did. That they would enjoy the same neighborhood the same way we did. That my family and friends would always be close and that nothing could come between us, including space. That everyone would live forever and grow old together.. or at least that some would live longer than they did. To have such a shallow mind was pure bliss.
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