On Coming Back Home

Even though I moved out of my parents' house six years ago, coming back to visit is like going back in time. And while I love coming home and spending time with family and friends, I can't help but regress to my 16-year old self here.

Maybe it's something about my room, which has remained relatively unchanged since I left. Everywhere I look there are books and trinkets- artifacts of interests past. Interests I might still have time for if I hadn't gone off to become an adult on my own in another city.

Or maybe it's the fact that no matter how old I am or how long it's been since I came home, my parents never fail to treat me like a teenager when I'm here. I can't go a day without my mother hounding me about where I'm going and when I'll be coming home. Or my father arguing with me over something I did wrong.

Maybe it's all my old friends, all grown up and responsible but still the same. They have mortgages and jobs and live-in significant others and they actually don't see very much of each other until I come home and they have a reason to. And then it's just the way I remember it. Like I never left and we're still in high school, except we've graduated from wine coolers to wine.

In all likelihood, it's just me. Because after years of maintaining my apartment clean, I come home and I won't wash a dish to save my life. I spend my entire day lying around my room as if I have no responsibilities and I tell my parents to get off my case about serious matters because I'm home and I don't want to think about it. I text everyone and make plans that they're normally too tired to make themselves.

I act the part and everyone reciprocates in kind. It's like being in a nostalgic bubble where I can ignore everything that life has taught me and act like an immature teenager again. A bizzaro world where smart phones have replaced dial-up internet and where I now feel weird about masturbating. Everything changes. Everything stays the same.

But despite the odd time capsule feeling, it's still home. And sometimes coming back reminds me that I wish I still lived here.