Homecoming Chapter 1 - What Else Should I Be?
Reposting this after accidentally deleting the original post.
"When a Phoenix nears the end of its life, it builds itself a nest out of spices and ignites it. Consumed by the fire, a young Phoenix emerges from the ashes of its past self. Could people not metaphorically do the same?”
Entry #??? - June 11th, 202X
Most kids are in a rush to grow up because they want to be able to do things that the adults are allowed to do but weren’t allowed to do since they were too young. Teenagers are in the weird middle ground where they’re still kids but want to be taken seriously because they are capable of more adult thoughts. The downside though is they’re impulsive, clumsy and hormonal while being handed some of the freedoms adult life allows.
As one of those kids who didn't want to grow and ended up being forced to do so anyways, let me be the millionth person to say that adult life isn't all it's cracked up to be, it never was to begin with. You’re forced to trade away simple joy for the mundane while trying not to be crushed under the weight of every expectation placed upon you that starts the minute you’re old enough to go to school.
What people don’t realize, however, is that school forces you to trade creativity for reason, solving asinine mathematical equations that only a handful of people ever go on to use in their careers instead of teaching developing young people how to be functional adult people.
You trade whimsy for routine and joy for the sake of being forced into a box shaped mold that society wants everyone to fit into when not every career path or line of work requires the same knowledge or skills. Standardized testing only works for some people and leaves others feeling lesser because they can’t memorize the answers to questions they’ll never think about again after they graduate.
The never ending nonsense that only comes from living in the city, the same dry social scripts repeated like a shopkeeper in a videogame just to complete a transaction over the phone. People of different career paths and walks of life all congregating to these massive hubs of commerce, culture and community. At least that’s what you would expect. In the modern age it’s more like commerce, divided cultures and way too much entitlement than any one person really should hold. Especially around the holidays, but I’m getting off track.
The point I was trying to make is that living in a city is overwhelming to say the least. You initially think you’re just going to move there for university and for the art culture. Then you just stick to your dorm and the spaces around campus because you can’t afford to go out and do anything when you aren’t in class. Which then leaves you picking up a part time job in a mall somewhere because you don’t have enough work experience for anything else.
You finally get that degree you were working your ass off to get and the next thing you know you’re unable to find work because despite your university diploma you’re expected to have say two years minimum experience working in the field you just spent that last four years of your life learning about in order to get a job in said field. Yeah, adult life is complete bullshit.
After spending about six years living on your own, you realize two things: first, you’re not ready to live on your own nor can you afford to, second you hate living in the city and relying on sketchy public transit to get from point A to point B. You also realize a secret third thing, you don’t need to stay in the city, so you pool together funds from every paycheck you can until you can afford to move back home. Expecting to be stuck living with your parents and your three younger siblings, the oldest of which is halfway through high school. Only to be surprised with the deed to your childhood home, now being handed to you with love that you didn’t expect to see again after you left home.
It’s not awful, as you’re an adult now and have a life of your own, a job that you managed to land yourself by sheer dumb luck and the beginnings of what one could consider a spine that you grew yourself. That’s what I thought it’d be at least, then I realize that the only real thing I enjoy about adult life is swearing without being scolded every time I do, and having adult money that one is also nice, mainly because I can say fuck it and buy a jug of strawberry milk and not be told no. Beyond that though there’s not a lot to enjoy, or maybe I just need the world to stop for a bit.
I sigh as I lay under the large oak tree that I used to spend hours playing or reading under in my childhood. Feeling the freshly cut grass on my skin as it shapes itself around me, I breathe in time with the gentle breeze as I watch the little wisps of cloud pass me by surrounded by the vast blue of the summer sky. It reminds me of my childhood in a bittersweet way, I say childhood but really my childhood ended when I was about ten years old. I learned how to cook meals and change diapers before I was even old enough to take a babysitting course. It was stressful but the backyard in the cool summer evenings was my escape. I came out here and I wasn’t a kid masquerading as an adult, I was just a kid.
I was a prince back then, even before I had the words to say it myself. Out here in the backyard, in the garden by the old stone well surrounded by lush greenery, magic and the beautiful world I crafted in my dreams. I smile as my eyes drift closed, and for the first time in years I finally feel at peace again. It was time for me to go home, time for me to go back to my kingdom after twenty years of trying to find the strength and resolve to return. The valley of my dreams was like my Ithaca and I, its Odysseus, only without my own Penelope to return to.
Only, I’m no longer the little prince I was back then, but at the same time no hero, certainly not a king. Just a man who played with fire, got burned and now wants to go back to my roots. Trying to escape for a bit, but I suppose that’s always what the valley was for me, an escape, safety, and though I remember how to get there I don’t recall if it truly is real or if it is just a world of my dreams.
Before I know it, I’m swimming in darkness at least, I’m trying to. It’s more like I’m falling, plummeting through a very familiar feeling with just enough wrongness for me to feel the edges of panic gripping at me with their ghastly little hands, cold and raw.
