It’s only been a year and a half since I last posted, and yet it feels like a lifetime.
The nostalgia had already gripped me then. Consumed me; decided on my every move, my every spoken word. It held me more tightly than I ever thought possible, but I learned to live with the pain, with the constant craving of wanting to run back to the life that was slipping through my fingers.
Perhaps now I am older, and wiser, it does not hurt so much. I look more to the future than the past. But every so often, I stumble open a memory that makes my heart ache. And every time I do, it hurts a little more than it did before.
I will only tell that to strangers that cannot judge me, ridicule me. I will only describe my pain to people that cannot look inside me and know the truth. Sometimes I cannot even admit that to myself.
I took a walk to my old house not long ago. The first month I came back to Scotland, I used to go every day, and stand outside for just a minute, looking at it, yearning and pleading for the life I had there. This time, it was easier to accept that it wasn’t mine anymore. I could see children’s toys in the windows. They’d changed the curtains and put up a fence. That wasn’t my mothers car in the driveway.
For the first time, I kept walking and let go of the house I left behind. I don’t want to forget all of the times I had there; I just want it to stop hurting. I used to think maybe it never would, that it would continue until it killed me. It still could, but I suppose all I can do, is hope that it doesn’t.
