Parking Lot 21

Being so far away from home, returning to its warm shores was something I always looked forward to. ‘Oh, for the comfort of family and friends,’ I would sigh and sigh again. The vicious veracity of it all was that I had illustrated this powerful image in my wistful mind, hoping that it would bring such great happiness, or at the very least, a sense of belonging. How terribly wrong I was, for each time I returned, though not denying moments of ephemeral ecstasy(hyperbole), shattering disappointment and ripe frustration eclipsed all that shined.

Coming home this time was a lot different. It’s as if the roots were pulled out from under me, unsuspectingly, and thrown out to sea. Granted, there was a bit more space in my house, which in time I will adjust to and accept as real, but the change in my sentiment for ‘home’ could not be explained solely on this premise.

The truth is that I was finding it increasingly difficult to attach the word ‘home’ to this house, which I had spent most of my living years in. Unsurprisingly, this coincided with my inability to detach myself from the place which I had lived in for a mere two years, which felt more like ‘home’ to me than any other place. How do I come to grips with the fact that my ‘home’ will be, in time, little more than a fleeting memory of ‘better days’? How do I come to terms with reality?

Perhaps this change is in part attributable to a reconsideration of what the word ‘comfort’ actually connotes to me. I find it intriguing and somewhat distressing that once you attach a word to a thought, an emotion, it becomes fixed forever and that thought, emotion ceases to be anything else- for it cannot be anything more than what it is said to be for it to be comprehensible to others. Follow? Well, it doesn’t really matter.

Before you prematurely assume that I have lost all sense of family, I feel that the obvious must be stated - of course I still find ‘comfort’ in the unparalleled affection of my magnificent mother, a sturdy sense of security in the mere presence of my brother; ‘convenience’, if not ‘leisure’ in not having to ever cook and clean around here; I am most grateful for these things but I have constantly tried to look beyond this, to find something, anything, to make me feel better, to make me feel whole and home, but at the end of the day I find myself staring into an abyss, hollow and alone. Ah, the inadequacy of growing older with essentially only what you have had your whole life- you definitely want nothing less but indefinably want so much more.

I miss the simpler days, so undemanding, where I breathed more than I held my breath. But so long departed they are now that they just seem illusory, like a dream, like love. All that remains is evanescent anyway. To redefine solace or to discover it anew is probably just what I need, but just what I need(in a strictly non-sarcastic sense) rarely comes my way. But alas, I hear reality again, telling me that all I really need to do is rectify my oblique perception of what life should be.

Well, that’s about enough cheerfulness for today. The pathos of ill-equipped changes ends here.