Meeting Your Old Self

Every time I come to my home town and get back to the place where I grew up, I feel a very intense combination of emotions. Today I realized that basically I keep on asking myself the same question again and again — how much have I changed? How different am I from the person I used to be? Did I manage to become a better one? And what if I did not? I make myself confused.

Please, turn this Lisa Hannigan`s music one (this song, for example), before you continue reading. Please do, and then get back to my writing. Thank you.

I come home, but I know it is not really my home anymore. I am an awaited and a loved visitor here, but my home is away from here. My home is where I sit down and feel complete calmness. My home is elsewhere. So who am I and what am I doing here? During the day I try to concentrate and work, but I cannot. My mind is wandering elsewhere, I am not in control of myself. And then…then the day comes to its end and I start writing again, like I used to.

I sit at my table late at night, when everyone is asleep and the lights are off, so there is only one light — it is coming from the screen of my laptop. I look outside and I see what I have been seeing every single day and night for years and years before I graduated from high school and moved away. This view is so familiar, but so distant at the same time.

I turn on music and stop. I sit and listen to it, I think and think and think, as the minutes, hours go by and night becomes even darker. At some point I make myself go to bad and I see nightmares. I wake up at night and I think about years and years of waking up due to the same reason. It takes time to get back to sleep, and in the morning I wake up tired. I feel some kind of pressure. I feel like something is wrong. I feel like I don`t belong. At the same time, I am not stupid and I know that I must move on, and I must let my life go on and on and on.