I move tomorrow.
I once had a dream so I packed up and split for the city
In a way, it's hard to believe. It hasn't sunken in, and probably won't until sometime on Sunday or Monday. It'll mark the fifth time (not including back and forth every summer of college) I've moved since I was ten. Now, granted, I moved all over southeastern Pennsylvania. Still, it's moving, it's packing up everything you own, deciding what you need and what you don't, what's worth hauling around and what isn't.
And the older I get, sadly, I think the more sentimental I get. The less I want to leave things behind. The more I inject emotion and memories into material things. It's not the thing itself which is important--it's what they're associated with.
Yes it's sad to say you will romanticize
All the things you've known before
It was not not not so great
I'm moving into the neighborhood I left when I was ten. I don't know any of my childhood friends; we wouldn't recognize each other, and we probably don't have anything in common. So why am I moving back? Why there? Aside from the fact that it's actually a pretty nice neighborhood now, nicer than when I was growing up there. Aside from the fact that it's near work, and right by a free shuttle. Aside from the fact that my friend Kate lives in that neighborhood now (a coincidence). Why am I moving there?
—-Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth
You can't go home again. I know that. I don't even necessarily want to. My childhood wasn't fun. So why go back? I think, in an odd way, I'm running away from the past fourteen years of my life, running someplace I know where no one knows me.
It'll be the first time I'm really living on my own. No parents, no dorms, no roommates, no housemates. Just me. In a one room apartment. In the city. Like a grown up. I'm twenty-four years old, still afraid of being an adult, still living with the fears of a ten year old. I'm afraid I can't do it. I'm afraid of being old. I'm afraid of being what I hate. I'm afraid.
I'm afraid.
I'd like it here if I could leave and see you from a long way away.
For years, I wanted to come back to Philly. I thought, "there, I'll be comfortable." In the city, you can melt. Of course, Philly is also very much like a small town, and you do end up knowing a lot of people. It's rare that I'll be wandering around town and someone I know won't be walking down the street and see me. So really, there is no escape. It's just another community.
But it's something. Small comfort. I can live a lifestyle I want, and no one can come down on me for it. I wanna drink? No roommate's gonna accuse me of alcoholism because I want a beer when I get off work. I wanna have sex? No parents are going to walk in on me with my boyfriend. I can stay out all night, and no one will be waiting up for me.
So why am I so scared?
C'mon, you know the words.