So about 2 years ago, I moved away. Broken spirit broken person, over 3000 miles. However, yesterday I landed for my first visit back here. And I just feel weird. Like I’m not supposed to be here or something, it’s very ominous. I constantly feel anxious.
The weirdest thing was seeing how my parents have started to age. And the woods where I used to hang out are all housing developments now. I’m currently sleeping on a mattress in my old room, aka the office now, surrounded by random shelving and printers and stuff. it’s really a weird feeling in here too.
I don’t know what I expected but I definitely don’t feel like I’m “home”. It’s like some weird alternate dimension version of home. There’s still some people I’m yet to see and I wonder how that’s gonna go. So far everything already feels uncomfortably different. Alongside that, the rose tint has also come off and I have a lot of bad memories going through my head too instead of any sort of nostalgia. Almost like the different person I was back then is still lurking here somewhere watching me.
Anyone familiar with such a feeling, after being away for so long?
In my 40s I went back to my home town, not having lived there since I was 18 (none of my family still lived there). First shop I went into the woman said, “Hi MrsDoyle, how’s your mum?” In the bank, the teller clocked my name and said, “Aww, I used to babysit you!” I got a big hit of the claustrophobia that drove me away in the first place.