Lone Gone

Going home is always a mixed bag of excitement and dread. Excitement because I get to see old friends, and family, and the place I call home. Dread I suppose from the anxiety I experience being away from familiar things. You see, home is like a ghost to me. You miss the emotions, the camaraderie, and the comfort it held. But time often fades memories into a sort of nostalgia. And the ties you once felt have become really nothing more than dates on a discarded old calendar.

Being accepted doesn’t always mean, being accepted. The passage of time and neglect, can often reduce your importance to nothing more than the pleasant memory of a long lost pet. We often place ourselves in importance more than we should. While the words and sentiment are genuinely real. In the back of my mind there’s that distance, that ever evolving change we often feel. I like to think of myself as becoming a little wiser over time. But often when I travel back, I feel like I’m reduced to that insecure, overweight child that I once was. 
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I know that’s probably a silly feeling. But the sands of time and 30 years of self-imposed isolation can do that to you. But back then, I just had to get away. Away from the ghost and the failures I had experienced. While more of the same faced me when I moved up here, I had to learn to depend on myself. But in all honesty those lessons also robbed me of a certain amount innocence and of relationships I’ll probably never get back. So I stand here with nothing, the same as I did when I left. Feeling a certain amount of anxiety that really has no place here. For the current flows down these dark waters, will surely continue after I’m long gone.