ode to a small town

dear you,

there are polar bears on my pajamas and i know i am home. the desk i have worked at for years has the same line up of books as it has done for a long time, with the occasional addition. fairy lights are still attached to the ceiling, making it look as though i am living in constant festivity. photographs of a much younger me are spread across the walls, along with posters of long forgotten interests. this is a snapshot of a child’s bedroom, and i have grown too tall. mum sleeps in my bed when i’m not home, occupying a space that i can no longer keep alive.

each street and route to anywhere is ingrained into my skin as deeply as my freckles. i remember each building that has become something new: first a sweet shop, then a cafe, then a restaurant. not unlike myself, the town is growing up. and yet i could still walk the halls of my secondary school with my eyes closed. it is inescapable, this feeling. leaving and coming back to a place you know so fondly, after so long, where the faces change and you no longer know everyone you see. where you notice the children you grew up with working at the cafe, or the restaurant. though, they are still no longer familiar faces. time changes us as fast as the wind.

there is an uncomfortability of being here when you know you won’t stay long, when this was the only place you knew and you had seen little else. in a child’s mind this was all i needed, surrounded by people i needed. but time has moved them along, too, and soon i won’t have fairy lights attached to my ceiling or the same books lining my desk. growing up is hard, but growing out of a place is harder.

yours, kate

(artwork: christina’s world, 1948 by andrew wyeth)