Entry of Emotion:
Chapter Three: The Past is Dead (And I don’t care?)
I went to my birth city for a national competition. I lived there for the first 7 years of my life… and I remembered so much about friends, the place, driving home there. The front door was red, the sidewalks were huge, there was a thick tree that would never lose its leaves.
I got to revisit the home I went to. I was expecting to feel a wash of nostalgia, expecting to feel the relief of returning home…
But that peace wasn’t there. The nostalgia wasn’t there. The door was painted gray, the sidewalks were tiny, the tree was thin. I didn’t feel nostalgia or relief, I felt indifference. We thought about visiting the old friends but, it’s been around 10 years, we didn’t know where they were.
Though…
although my view was likely jaded because I was young, the memories were still real. I remember the friends that were there, the red door, the sidewalks, the tree. But those memories just live with me, no one else. But those moments do not exist now, they are gone. The past is dead.
I don’t know how I feel about that. Grieving isn’t really my thing. I feel strange inside knowing that I won’t experience those moments again, or experience a future where I stayed there, but I don’t think it’s that important to me, if I am being honest.
I live in a bigger house, we don’t have sidewalks, and we have hundreds of trees, and I have close friends. I’ve lived longer in my new place than my previous place. My life is great right now, and I wouldn’t say I regret moving. I guess coming back was confirmation that I grew.














