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I've come back to my home town for a few days. It's been a bit dreary. My parents asked me to go through some of my old things and throw stuff out or take it with me. They think they might move soon and don't want to take it with them. But I don't have the space to take things with me either. In the end it boiled down to me simply throwing out my childhood like so many bags of paper and plastic. Granted, much of it should have been thrown out years ago. But I spent many hours and many dollars on that stuff. A little piece of me disappeared into those bags when it feels like I have precious few pieces left.
I've been feeling restless lately, often thinking of going for a midnight walk as I did so often in my teenage years. But I no longer feel safe doing so where I live now. There are too many assholes, drunks, crazies and addicts wandering the streets these days. You've got to be strong in the city. Don't let them see you cry. There's a disconnect there. So many people but so few of them are interested in your story.
But this little town seemed just as lonely. The night was cool but sticky with the recent rain. There were no stars and no moon. I walked through empty streets. There were no people even at that relatively early our. No teenagers hanging out on street corners as I once did. Nobody walking their dog or stumbling home from the bar. I could look down the long main streets and see no headlights.
I walked through the neighbourhoods I travelled as a kid, through the routes I walked a thousand times as a paperboy, saw the homes I had lived in, the schools I went to. Not much had changed. There were a few new coats of paint, a few missing buildings and a few new ones. But all in all it was the same town I left ten years ago, the one I had wanted to escape so badly. Here and there the dull blue glow of a television flickered through windows. The chirping of crickets kept me company along with the breeze in my ears, the hum of air conditioners and wroom of distant motors.
Though it all seemed so familiar, I felt lost, too. Like hearing a song you haven't heard in ages. You forget the lyrics until the artist starts singing the line and then just that line comes back to you. So, too, the streets came back to me only one house at a time until they were set upon and passed.
I walked up High Street farther than I think I had ever walked before, past the dark brick megaliths of the rich. It felt like I had walked a long time but it had only been a few minutes. The street lights ended. I found myself on the edge of town staring down the dark. Fireflies mysteriously floated through the long grasses of the fields. They were the only lights to be seen. I stared into that darkness and quickly looked away. I felt fear overcome me. It wasn't a fear of the dark. Not in the literal sense.
I've never been much for keeping up with the Jones'. Hell, I don't even want to get to know the Jones'. But there is something intrinsically human about desiring a home - a house in which to encapsulate your life, a safe place for memories and trinkets. As I walked the town I passed the houses of old friends: Curt, Ian, Adam, Simon, Angie, Sean, Tyler, Mac, Alex... some of the people I had known and grown up with, the people that helped shape me. I wondered where they were and what they were doing though some I had talked to as little as a few years ago. Some of the people I've grown up with have won Oscars, become actors, artists, singers, journalists and so on. They had passions and pursued them. I on the other hand, stood at the end of a long road with little left behind me and darkness ahead.
