If you are an avid reader then words are not strangers to you. If you write, well, then words are your blood, sweat and tears (I realized later on that the song blood, sweat and tears was playing while I started writing this). I sometimes wonder what makes people speechless, or makes them say "I am out of words" except for tragedies or some extremely bizarre events. Is it the moment they're in? The feelings? The memories? The place? The time? The people?
There are so many factors, that when it happens to you, you don't know why it happened. After thinking more about it, I feel like it is the amalgamation of all the things I listed and maybe more. No matter the crap this town had and still has, coming back here is always going make me say "I am home". Walking the streets you frequented 6 days a week for more than decade, after almost a decade, makes you notice things you never realized before. Have the streets always been this small? Were the walls only this high? Weren't these windows bigger before? Where did the parking for bicycles go? Where is the ground that used to sit in the major part of the school yard go? Were there always buildings on that ground? Are there some swings and slides missing or were they taken down or did I miss all the change as it was happening and now it's being smacked in my face?
You graduate, you move. You grow up. You change. The places? We expect them to stay the same when we come back to them. Do they grow? Yes. The only difference between their growth and ours is that we grow up, and they either stay there or grow older. They seem smaller to our new eyes, new perspectives, or they are demolished and built up from scratch rendering you lost by being unrecognizable.
It's then when the realization hits you, that the windows didn't shrink but you're not a 4 year old anymore. The streets didn't shrink, they're just withered and you haven't frequented them in almost a decade. The parking shifted, so did the buildings. Those swings might have been uprooted, but they're also surrounded by rows of concrete now instead of the green and sand.
What stays the same is the sprinkle of yellow in all the green of the Golden Shower, the scent of the wet sand after the first fall of a long and hot summer day. It's those silent evenings at the backyard of the carved white marble beauty where the birds dance flying around in circles. It's those halogen baked badminton evenings, the light less night sky with just stars and stars to stare at making constellations.
I don't have four walls and a roof to call "home" anymore in this town, but like it is said, Home is not a place you live in, it is a feeling you have. This town has given me a lot, has taken a lot from me and has left me uncountable memories. I'll end with a cliche, "After all this time?"
Always......
