never go back

“You can never go back,” it felt like a slap in the face, like a fate I was doomed to endure. “You can go as far as you like, but whatever you do you can never go back.” It sounded like an insult, like a curse or attack on my character, like a personal statement meant to kick me while I was down. 


Now at 22 and having read it 12 times over I can see, it was never meant to hurt me, it was a truth I wasn’t able to see, wasn’t ready to reckon in. “You can never go back,” it wasn’t curse telling me I could never return, it was telling me I couldn’t go back. It will never be 2005 again and the summer won’t feel like that again, but I could still return to that state, that country, that house, but it will never be back again. 


My life can be divided into two sections, there was before I moved and there is after. I can never go back there, it will never be the same, look the same, or feel the same. Even while I try to explain it still feels like an insult, but it’s just the reality. I can return, but I can never go back. 


I don’t live in the country I was born in, and it sounds more dramatic than it really is, but it shaped me, changed me. It, as they say, altered my brain chemistry, some parts for the better and some for the redeemable.  It changed me, so no matter if I could go back if all the people were still there if all the world was the same I would still be different. 


So no, I can never go back that is true but its not a cures its just an unpleasant reality, one which took me far too long to realize. I’m visiting my home country, for my childhood friends wedding, and the plane rides over gave me time to think. 


I don’t think I want to go back anymore, for the first time in 14 years I like my life now better than before. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished and ready to continue in this grand adventure. To finally realize I don’t love the past quite as much as I do the present is near shocking. A good kind of rattling. 


I'd like to tell you where the revelation came from exactly, but I’m not sure. Something about leaving home and being away adds a level of perspective, gives a fresh set of eyes and clears away the fog of the familiar. I make great plans when I’m away. And maybe it’s just the place I live, or maybe its home itself, I won’t know for sure till home has moved again. 


“You can never go back,” and I don’t want to, not anymore. I want to go forward and into the exciting unknown. I have dreams bigger than whales and I can’t wait to the the sweet sweet victory of perseverance. So I won’t try to go back anymore, but maybe one day I’ll return, to the place it all started and give it a proper goodbye. 

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