I went to "my old 'hood" this evening... the neighborhood in which I lived during a hard time in my life. A neighborhood so high up in Manhattan that we lovingly/hatingly nicknamed it "upstate Manhattan". I headed up there to go to a holiday party at my good friend's home. She lives a stone's throw from the apartment where I used to live, (although her one-bedroom is much much nicer than mine was).
Sometimes it's weird going back to a place. I'm a different person than I was when I lived there a few short years ago - although it seems like a lifetime has passed since then. Then - I was tired, I was struggling, I was unhappy... in short, I was not myself. Now - I am full of life, I am loved, I am joyous. And being this person in that world was - well, weird.
It made the neighborhood - all that I remember, all that I liked - seem sad and lonely. I'm in such a lovely place in my life and being back there made me feel... well, not quite guilty for being happier - but something like that. Something that I didn't like feeling.
Strange how the physical world can have such an impact on your emotional world.
Sometimes I deliver mail in the neighborhood where I grew up. It's weird and comforting all at the same time. It's nice to see that the same people are still there, but strange to see them playing with grand children. Even stranger to see houses where cranberry bogs or forests once stood.
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