Lifetimes

I don't know who actually reads this. I'm not sure anyone except for a computer somewhere does, and even then I don't think it actually reads it. I write mainly because I have a lot to say and a lot on my mind but don't want to waste anyone's time by telling them everything on my mind; I talk enough as it is.

When I look back on my life, I've had a lot going on. I've seen a lot of things, experienced a lot (both good and bad) and have had a great deal of both excitement and disappointment. But when I look back, it can often feel like lifetimes have passed since event-x happened. This week has definitely been one of those times.

I lived in the same place for 26 years. Moved around in two cities specifically, changed addresses, moved out on my own, etc. But I never moved away. Until one day I decided enough was enough and got the heck out of dodge. That was only four months ago.

I finally got the chance to go back and visit this last week. I think in the back of my mind I expected that I was the exact same person that left and that of course, everyone else had stayed the same and nothing back home had changed. Time had stopped in a preverbal freeze and I'd walk off the plane and jump right back into my old life - just to visit, of course.

Even on the first day I felt the change. What were once friendly interactions and exchanges between close friends almost felt awkward, even conversing with my parents seemed strained to an extent - not because we weren't getting along, but because we didn't know how to act around each other. There were literally only two people that I fell back into the swing of things with and felt truly at home. The rest of the week, I felt like a stranger in another persons body.

I've felt this at other points of my life, normally after something traumatic. It was only fourteen years that I lost my mom, but maybe because I was so young, it feels like a lifetime ago. I have no clue who that twelve year old was because she was a completely different person than I am sitting here writing this today. High school....man, high school feels like both yesterday and also (yep, you guessed it) a lifetime ago.

I don't know how to explain this feeling if you haven't felt it. It's like the movie "Freaky Friday" I guess. It's like I woke up when I got off the plane and was a completely different person that left just four months ago. It hasn't even been a year! A year ago I was just trying to figure out how to finish school. And then here I am now, living a thousand miles away from where I grew up...and I feel like I've changed completely without even realizing it or planning on it. It just happens I guess.

We as humans have one lifetime to live. Years may seem like lifetimes, or they may seem like the blink of an eye as well. But I hope at the end of our actual lifetime we can look back on all the "lives" we've lived, or personas we've acquired and can see the good in it.