holiday blues

What is that feeling, the one you get when you are home and driving and there is no music in the car so you turn on a radio station that you used to listen to in high school and the DJ puts on a song, a song that you used to listen to on repeat sophomore year of high school while you thought about a boy that you could slow-dance to the song with, what is that feeling called, when you remember all those feelings that you felt when you heard that song at one point in your life, but you just remember them, you don't feel them? What is that feeling called, when you wake up one morning in a house that is no longer your home, a house you spent the majority of your life in, but one that you don't feel like you belong to anymore? What is that feeling, when you realize that you don't actually belong anywhere? What is that feeling called when you realize that you've grown out of things that you weren't quite ready to grow out of, that time has passed and that a new year is coming and you might not be ready to let go of the one you're in now?

I feel lonely when I come home, lonely in my thoughts and my opinions. Maybe it's because the church is so prevalent when I'm home, it's like this presence in my house and I feel like I can't escape it. I feel like I'm struggling against who I used to be when I'm at home, like it's hard to forget who I once was and I kind of despise myself for it. I am who I am now but it's still difficult for me to swallow the fact that I rebuked my family once, that I left them, all in the pursuit of God. I turned my back on them because I felt there was a higher calling. And I come home, now, and I look at them, now, and I feel sorrow for what I did. I'm always feeling sorrow for things I did. And home is the one place where I can't escape from my past mistakes, where I can't bury things. Because They Know. Because my family Knows me. They Know me and they still Love me. And that, that is terrifying. But I'm going to have to try harder now. We're all going to have to try harder now. And that is a Good Thing.




(Growing up is hard.)