Life's weird.

It's weird as an adult to go back and visit the place where you were a student.

Five years later, I still get an uneasy feeling, even when I visit the large city I originally went to school in.

It's weird to me that everything in that big city can change so much yet remain exactly the same.

The retail store I worked at? It sits empty. The new store in a few miles east, next to a Cabela’s.

Weird.

That school I went to? There are new buildings being built all over campus. One of the apartment complexes I lived in is being torn down soon.

That parking lot that my car broke down in? That store that I sat in for a couple hours, waiting for a tow truck? Those still exist, but now it’s totally different.

My almost-paid-off-car runs and is dependable. And, if it didn’t run, I have a full-time job and the means to cover an unfortunate event.

I don’t understand how everything can change but still look exactly the same.

I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like, hey, place I used to live, thanks for teaching me those lessons you taught me. But all I really remember is being homesick and not wanting to be here. But, hey, thanks for existing and making me who I am.

By the way, you kind of majorly suck and I still don’t really like you (cough, big city, cough).

Sigh.

You know that feeling of being at peace, of being happy and knowing that you belong where you landed?

I’ve never felt that in anywhere but my hometown. I guess it makes sense that I live here now. No place else has even remotely given me the sense of happiness and belonging that my hometown has given me.

I guess I'm thankful for what that experience taught me - it taught me what I didn't want in life. I don't want to be surrounded by thousands of people I don't know. I don't want to be hundreds of miles away from my family. I don't want to be surrounded by concrete.

I like what's familiar. I need wide open spaces. I need to be able to breathe. I don't mind that there are more cows in my hometown than people. And I don't mind spending a few hours in a car to get to a place where people outnumber livestock.

I never thought I'd say that.

Life’s weird.