coming home

When I'm in Texas, I'm always struck by a revelation. No, not the revelation that Texas is best.... that one stays with me at all times. It's the one that goes something like... when you move away from home, home will never be exactly the same again.

People change, towns change. YOU change. And there's something very bittersweet to coming "home" to a place that looks different than you remember, and to your friends who have grown, despite your absence.

It's kind of like when you're going through grief, and your world has stopped, and then you realize construction on the new Target has still been going on, despite the fact that your dad is dead. Life moves on.

And I am so different. I am not who I was before the pain, because I am no longer innocent to pain. And I'm not who I was in the grief, because the grief has lifted. I am both of those, and something else... I'm new, really. And that's kind of hard to explain over a taco. The same for you... I know that you have lived, but I won't really ever know.

Then there's those conversations with a childhood friend or a sibling, where the sense of connection and shared experience carries all the weight. You know who I am, and I know who you are, despite what life has done to us. That kind of enduring, recycling friendship is refreshing.

it's the same
but all fractured
and it hurts
but it's familiar

coming home

and when I'm home again
I'll miss home

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