So about 2 years ago, I moved away. Broken spirit broken person, over 3000 miles. However, yesterday I landed for my first visit back here. And I just feel weird. Like I’m not supposed to be here or something, it’s very ominous. I constantly feel anxious.
The weirdest thing was seeing how my parents have started to age. And the woods where I used to hang out are all housing developments now. I’m currently sleeping on a mattress in my old room, aka the office now, surrounded by random shelving and printers and stuff. it’s really a weird feeling in here too.
I don’t know what I expected but I definitely don’t feel like I’m “home”. It’s like some weird alternate dimension version of home. There’s still some people I’m yet to see and I wonder how that’s gonna go. So far everything already feels uncomfortably different. Alongside that, the rose tint has also come off and I have a lot of bad memories going through my head too instead of any sort of nostalgia. Almost like the different person I was back then is still lurking here somewhere watching me.
Anyone familiar with such a feeling, after being away for so long?
Absolutely. My wife and I moved to our current city in 2015. We always visited our shared home city at least 1-2 times a year. Due to the pandemic we didn’t go home from 2019-2022. When we finally went to visit again in 2022 it was honestly unsettling.
The current area we live is urban/rapidly growing and has a rather young population. Where we both grew up is relatively stagnant. Being back where we came from felt like living life without color. Everyone just seemed depressed—no one was wearing color. It was just sad. We had picked up on it during previous visits, but the shock going from 2019 to 2022 was wild. We haven’t been back since, so maybe it’s better now?
For our situation I think there’s objective reasons as to why it feels different (I think there are in your situation as well), but I think some of it has to do with getting older. You can never really go back. You will forever see your old home through the eyes of an adult, and not the eyes of a child.