virginia is for lovers

later on today, i will be leaving 'the city that reads' and traveling south to spend a bit of time with my parents. it will be strange to leave this new 'home' and go to the town where i did much of my 'growing up'...and yet the house in which my parents now live has no connection to anything, or anyone, that i used to be. perhaps this is a good thing....i don't know that i'm really in the market for bombarding reminders of my teen and young adult angst.

hopefully, i will be able to reconnect with a few old friends while i am there. out of all the people i have come to know in my life, it is, ironically, my friends from high school that have, for the most part, best kept in touch with me. and being with them is like getting to relive my teen years without all the negative memories. it's all english class adventures, sleepovers and french club fieldtrips - none of the petty fights and feeling inadequate. some things are worth filtering out of our recollections.

so i will drive down the roads that used to seem so wide and see the coffee shops and bookstores where i spent many a summer night talking about the meaning of life and love and exploring the mysteries of the universe over iced raspberry mochas. and i will remember who i was all over again....and i will give thanks that i have changed since the day i packed up my stuff and dragged it to baltimore. for a brief flash of a moment, part of me will yearn for what was, but then i will come to my senses and the rest of me will breathe a sigh of relief that, at the end of the day, i'm a grown-up now and the pressures and social cliques of high school no longer apply to my life.

maybe you can't go 'home' again....but to me, richmond is my past and, like the scars of old boyfriends and middle school dances, it must be examined and revisited every once in awhile....evaluated for what, if any, hold it still has on me....

and anyway, sometimes it's actually nice to be reminded that i'm still someone's kid, even if i am 27 years old.....besides, i'm broke and i've got laundry to do:)