Not That Kind of Twilight
On Going Back to Go Forward
With road days lying before me, I need to say aloud that I am afraid. Each return to the East coast feels like turning on an old built-in tv and watching Twilight episodes about people and things you used to know. Some episodes feature traumatic memories, trigger long forgotten terrors, or, in a casual sense, completely change the way reality is perceived. It’s not an experience to walk into lightly — not undifferent from psychedelics, I would imagine.
However I have no guide. That’s the entire issue, isn’t it? Checkboxes were missed. Questions went unanswered; and while I have the same assurance that its affects are temporary and I will once again be in a state where my present is the foreground. An ever-present sense of dread is seated in my gut concerned that I won’t get back to this quiet, safe place of growth I have been nurturing so passionately these last four years. It’s not the people that repel me. They are the magnets who draw me back, remind me what is good and right in the world, and the reasons I am here today. I miss the heat and the river. Sometimes I think I’ll be sick if I don’t touch the Chattahoochee again soon, but I can’t move forward while I stand staring at this TV set of bastardized realities.
Perhaps one day, I’ll learn how to turn it off, mute it, or look away. However, today every molecule in my body knows that day hasn’t come yet. With each mile I drive, I will be closer to a situation that will undoubtedly best me. At some point, it’ll be too much. I will have missed a key sign again, and something will go wrong. But it won’t go wrong as badly as it used to; I won’t get as angry with myself as I did back then, and I’ll step away with more practice and a better understanding of how I might one day even enjoy the show when it comes on.
