Expected this to take a dark turn because anon, was not prepared for warm poetic nostalgia in its place.
I’m a bit older than this and I’ve been feeling this too. Getting older is weird.
It really hits when kids you knew when you were an adult are now adults. That, and when you start thinking ahead. 10 years from now, my mom will be 75…
Was in a car with some coworkers and I realized I’m now the oldest one in the car.
My parents worked to manufacture this. The white picket fence. The wave to your neighbor that you regularly have over. The Dishonest Harmony…
My parents are christian trumpers. And if I could move farther away, I would.
If you have this, hold onto it.
The most pernicious self-deception is that things are as they appear to be. The second is that they should be.
Must be nice to have had a childhood that evokes that vibe.
It definitely happens. Not sure where the turning point is but I’m in my 30s and both my folks are in their 70s; somewhere along the way our interactions shifted slightly where I lean on them less and they lean on me more.
>be me
>have been avoiding my parents’ house for over a decade
We brought the past with us. We’re still here and we’re advancing our historical works into the future.
So much of what was old is new again. So much of what was new is now a bedrock upon which the next thing is built.
Do a bit of digging and you’ll find it. Do a bit of listening and you can still hear history echo.
This feels like it could be turned into a poem without too much adjustment
Greentext is already a form of poetry
Wholesome.
Wholesome, reminiscent, and melancholy.
😭😭😭
My elementary school is now a neighborhood. But I still walk down the road, and looking at the landscape, I know I stood here as a child wondering what the future might hold. It’s very strange. I feel like I have the memories of a different person.
who knew our version of poetry starts with ‘be me’
I got no place to go back too. I don’t have anyone waiting for me anywhere.
If it’s any consolation, I just returned home because of a death in the family. And while things are nostalgic, they’re also completely different, and I know that the time and experiences I had when I was a child will never be the same again.
I can go back to the place, but I can never go back to the time. Things have changed. I’m on a new adventure, in a different chapter of my life story. Many of my friends are gone. Their stories have ended. Mine continues.
Beautifully put.
I love my home town. It’s lovely, quaint, and consistently ranks somewhere on the “best places to live in” surveys. I was really fortunate to grow up there, even if I didn’t realise it at the time.
I flew the nest, found my own path, and moved around a bit. I’ve settled six hundred miles away - and with the numbers of folk in my family slowly starting to dwindle, I’m finding fewer and fewer reasons to go back home.
I miss my formative years, but rather than grieve for them, I’m thankful for growing up somewhere that gave me a lot of joy and good memories. I may not have grown up where I am now, but it’s where my other half and my kids are, and that’s home now.
Also, some things haven’t changed, but should have.
Yeah, the kitchen smells the same, mom’s laugh is the same, dad’s still using the same chipped mug.
But, dad’s prejudices haven’t changed, they’ve only calcified a bit more. Mom’s learned helplessness has only gotten worse. The old disagreements never got resolved, they just got shelved, ready to be taken down again when the time comes.
Plus, the parents think that you, their kid, hasn’t changed. They still see you as helpless and in need of their guidance, even when they’re having increasing difficulty navigating the world because things are changing too quickly for them to handle. Hence the old meme of “take your resume, walk right into that office, and demand a job!”
I get the appeal of nostalgia, and it’s sometimes fun to pretend that things haven’t changed, but it’s better to realize that time keeps marching forward and try to adapt to the new situation.
