Saying Goodbye

If there's one thing I really really don't like, it's saying goodbye.

Today I got to see two really good friends that I haven't seen (or even talked to) in two years and another kid we were all friends with when we were in grade school that I haven't seen in forever.

It was a fun time and I got to spend a large portion of the day talking with them, which was no small feat considering it was at a graduation party and one was the graduate and the other was her brother so they had to keep making rounds to see and talk to family and other friends.

Nothing hits you harder than going back to a place that was once so familiar; especially a place you haven't been in a while.

We moved "back home" 8 years ago. That's what my mom has always said. Home for her is where she grew up, and my dad grew up not too far away either. This was the town we lived in when I was born and this is where they brought me back from the hospital to start a family of three. So yeah, I guess this is home. But I don't want to make this sound like we made some big grand cross-country move. No. We moved across the city, a half an hour to 45 minutes away. That doesn't sound far enough to make a difference, but trust me, when you've lived both places you can tell the difference.

So yes, where my mom calls home is definitely home, but it's not my only home. I spent 8 years of my life in that other town. 8 years is the longest I've ever been in one place. Mid-June will mark 8 years in this house and will tie the record for the longest I've lived anywhere. I don't even know if that still counts considering I live away at school and I'm only back for the summers.

In some ways, I love it. I know different places, and so many roads that even though I've only left the state, let alone the tri-county area, a few times in my life, it makes me feel like a world traveler. Other times, I hate it. I don't have a hometown. I don't have the growth chart on the wall in the kitchen and the paint stain on the carpet from where I got too wild with finger paint at 5 or the scuff marks on the wall from where I thought it was a good idea to bounce a super ball off it repeatedly. I don't have those memories around every turn.

Sometimes, it would be nice to walk down the hall and turn the corner and see a reminder of your childhood. I've lived in this house since I was 12. By the time we moved here a lot of my growing up, becoming an adolescent had already been done. Gone were the days of sidewalk chalk and finger paint and dress up and barbie dolls.

Sometimes you just want to go to a place where you can get all those things back. Today, I got to go back for just a little bit.

The nostalgia started creeping in as soon as we started rolling past my old grade school. Like anything else, it doesn't look exactly the same. They added a plastic playground in the back and took out the basketball hoops. They changed the parking lot around, they added signs. There's a new awning on the cafeteria and all the doors are numbered with big yellow numbers now. I could say this made me sad, but I honestly didn't care. I had SOME good times at that school but they were basically overshadowed by the bad, so I don't hold those memories is high regard.

I was hit full force though when we made the left turn at the golf club. The maintenance shed and a few trees were gone, but I hadn't been down this road in two years, even though it seemed like longer. For some reason in my mind, it was like nothing had changed.

We had to park down the road because of all the people there for the party. I had this weird, eerie, Back to the Future time warp feeling walking up that road. How many times had I done that at age 9, 10, 11, or 12? How many times did we run up and down that street and turn around in the cul-de-sac while someone rode their bike or tossed a football?

Seeing the ranch style yellow brick house when I crested the hill was even weirder. It looked exactly the same as it always did. I spent so much time in my youth outside that house. Sitting on the wall swinging my legs in awkward silence. Tossing stuff around in the yard, playing tag, throwing mulch over the house. Watching billows of smoke rise above the trees and wondering what was going on, only to find out later that a house had exploded just a few streets away and was completely ablaze.

The backyard though was different. Aside from the obvious difference that there was a party going on (big tents set up and tables, food, not to mention a zillion people milling about), two trees were gone and so was the old swing set / tree house where we spent a lot of time. The tree house part was sometimes our secret clubhouse. We tried running up the slide numerous times and competed to see who could swing the highest. The yard seemed smaller somehow. When we were kids, it stretched on forever.

It honestly didn't deter the nostalgic feelings. When I look back sometimes I think I have more memories of this place than I did of my own house. My house wasn't even on the same street, it was like ten or fifteen minutes away.

Seeing people from your past is even weirder. I think the last time I had a normal conversation with the one kid, we were twelve or thirteen years old. Back then, we didn't know anything. We were in middle school for crying out loud. We were all ridiculous back then.

I don't even remember what we talked about. I remember the things we did and we obviously talked while doing them, but I can not pinpoint a single thing that we talked about. We played Guitar Hero II and Dance Dance Revolution and Mario Kart. We went to a restaurant called North Park Clubhouse that was like a mini version of Dave and Busters and we always ordered "Lounge Fries" which were french fries drenched in cheese and bacon and they came with a side of ranch dressing. And while we waited for our food to come we went and played games and bought really crappy prizes that normally broke before we made it home. We played basketball inside the house on a crappy plastic backboard that hung on the back of the door. So maybe we never did talk.

That's the difference between age 10 and age 20. At ten you can get away with playing and making up games and not talking. At 20... that's pretty much all you can do. At 20 you don't even have alcohol to help the conversation along, unless you're somewhere that it's already supplied.

So what do you talk about with someone you haven't seen in years? You can talk about everything or nothing. Or maybe you can do both all at once.

What's even stranger is that when you're done talking about everything or nothing, you realize you've changed. You've realized the other person has changed. You've realized that nothing is ever going to be the same again.

Walking away from that party I felt like I was saying goodbye to an old friend. I felt like that was the end, that there would be no more attempts to get together, to catch up, to be anything like we once were.

I can't say it wasn't a sad feeling, but it was also kind of peaceful. I felt like one chapter of my life was finally over and maybe, just maybe a new one could finally start.