home/time

I feel like I need to write about time. These are thoughts that have been building up over break, possibly longer than that.

I spent break immersed, almost trapped, in the past. It was a result of a combination of the lackluster lethargy that I have always felt associated with my hometown, and my own need to return to familiarity after having experienced nothing but new for the two weeks I spent in Vancouver. During that week and a half, I physically and mentally traipsed old paths I hadn't visited in five, eight, ten years.

At first it was pleasant to be home again. The house felt a bit hollow because my parents were absent - particularly my mother, whom I've realized defines home for me - but it was mostly familiar, save some rearranged furniture and kitchen implements. Over the next few days as I traveled through my town and to New York on the same commuter's route I felt as though I was falling back into a groove, like a new string that has been perched on the edge of a violin's neck, finally slipping into its intended place. I met my friends and my sister's friends, whom I hadn't seen at least since I had left for Canada, some even longer. I opened up to strangers and rediscovered that it was a beautiful thing to see them relax and smile.

A few days in, things began to change. I noticed that I felt curiously alien. I belonged again and didn't belong. I spoke to a elderly couple one day while waiting for a delayed bus, and was able to give them information about the bus route like a local, but still felt like a visitor. In the house, every photograph on the wall, every familiar object and sound, started to trigger memories. Driving down the street brought memories. Shoveling snow in the driveway I saw the children of the next door neighbors, all grown up like myself, and wondered where time had gone. I saw some familiar faces I hadn't seen in ten years, and wondered about some faces I was missing - the friends I had then who had moved away and the friends I have now who had never lived nearby.

Up till New Year's Day, I was also struggling to complete a reading challenge I had set for myself, so I was reading a book a day for the last few days. Two of these happened to address time in very different manners - one made me think about psychological/human perception of time, and the other was a prediction of the present made ~100 years ago.

The night before I was supposed to fly back, I was miserable. I felt like I had wasted my time at home, like I had failed to learn or gain anything during those two weeks. In my harsh self-judgment I decided that I had not moved forward, only back. And then I came to the realization that such a judgment was an incorrect statement. I had reopened many channels to memories I had blocked out or forgotten; I had reconnected with some people I had never expected to meet in person again. Furthermore, the unsettling feeling was in itself a learning experience. I realized that I must balance my life, not only on the work-play axis or the internal-external axis or on the masculine-feminine axis or any other physical/mental axes that contribute to my existence, but also the past-future axis. I cannot be happy thinking only of the past, nor can I fully appreciate the world and people around me if I think only of the future. This break I may have been subconsciously trying to return to center and gone too long into the past. But I am glad to have done it, and to have found this new truth.