I  can’t say why I came back here. It certainly wasn’t in my plans, not anywhere on my to-do list. I thought I had left it all behind when I fled this place. This place full of memories, things I wanted to forget, good and bad. Things that I regret doing and saying to those I loved, which most of the time it was just me trying to break free of the mold in which I was in due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control but I blamed everyone anyway.

A mold which was not so much tarnished as just the way of life. When I thought of my parents, or relatives that I wished away without a thought to why, I knew it was my longing to go and do the things I felt necessary to my existence and not a slight against those I loved. Back then I was too anxious to follow the dreams that ran through my head.

I wanted to go out and explore the world. It all seemed exciting to me and I just knew I was missing out on something. It was all I could think about for the longest time. It was my path to a whole new world to discover like Columbus had done.

There was a time I enjoyed being home, being with my parents, my sisters, my brother, surrounded by familiar things that made up my family. I dismissed those people who were not important enough to be in my circle of things that mattered to me. Wondered what it was about me that made me so uncaring. Eventually, I dismissed that, too, I had no time for any of that kind of thinking. I was on my own path, wherever it would lead me.

I was intent on going places, finding new adventures, and one day I knew I would. I would just have to wait it out.

Here, in the place I once called home, it became both sanctuary and my own private hell, as I looked toward the future and to a time when I would be gone, wanting nothing more than to grow up and move on.