Abandoned places, abandoned people

There's a certain allure in walking away and leaving things the way they were. Leaving people the way you remember them to hold on to the idea that you can one day return and pick it up, just the way that it was. A life you could possibly continue even though you would right now want something else. You're not quite ready to let go, but you're ready to move on to something different. It doesn't even have to be that you're ready, it's just that you need to. The age old thing of having the cake and eating it too (she said as she broke the head of a chocolate Easter bunny and immediately mourned for the death of the adorable shape of its well thought out and cute design).

It also holds an element of nostalgia. The older I get my perception of the past seems to change into something more positive. Not necessarily that I forget about negativity, but it's the devil I know. It's the devil you, know. It's the devil, you know, because no matter how much you'd love for the places and people you leave behind to hibernate, sit in wait, for you to return, they won't. Places change, people change, and the only way they will possibly change in a direction you can keep track of is to be with them. It's difficult to influence from afar.

Change is rarely dramatic, much more often subtle, and it takes some effort to see it. Just like spring takes its time (Visst gör det ont när knoppar brister / Varför skulle våren annars tveka) the nuances that make up people grind their way through to conciousness. A small change in the way they speak, an ever so slight alternation to their gait, are you there to witness them blossom or do you prefer to ignore their transformations because it's easier to keep them the way they've survived in your mind?

Time never comes to halt. We see this phenomena in popculture, you know the type of films where the nerd comes back for a revenge on its bullies. Rushing towards them with their success, ready to show off how much better they've become from moving away and making something of themselves. This only works if the bullies have remained static. Doesn't then the nerd do exactly the same thing they hated the bullies doing, limiting someone, putting them into a box of what someone else thinks a person should be? We all change, some for the better and some for the worse. I'm not going to deny the fact that some change more than others, but change is necessary, without it we can't live. Noone can be completely stagnant. Experiences can be humbling, both for bully and nerd.

I'd like to think that everyone's lives hold the same amount of grief and happiness, it just differs in which order we live through them, and naturally, what happens first is what'll affect us the most. Some simply need more time to reach the same point of maturity. That is why you should never consider yourself to be more than anyone else if you look at it from the bigger perspective. Upon the point of old age, or death, we should all be  somewhat equal. We will all have experienced love, loss of the same, hardship and success, dreams and their realisation.

So, when you come back, don't fear nature having reclaimed the streets of your childhood, don't fear the cracked paving, the new buildings, the new pulse of life, the unfamiliar scents mixed with the ones you used to know. Embrace the wonder of them, just like you should the people you left behind. Perhaps you can find something new in them, something you knew was there but you were busy disliking other aspects to see.