I recently went back to the place where I spent my childhood. I thought I was going back home, I was so excited. Excited that I was revisiting memories, excited that Id feel home again. The day I moved I felt a hollow feeling inside me, I was leaving everything behind. My friends, my memories, everything that was familiar to me, everything that had come to protect me. I always loved adventure, I was always on the look out of discovering new things. Often when my family for a picnic to the beach or to a lake, I would detach from the family and roam around alone. Eager to discover something new, ravishing in the peace of doing anything that I wanted, eager for adventure. But leaving all that behind for an entirely new and different life; that was one adventure I was not ready for one adventure I didn't want to take. But I had to.
It took me a long time to finally accept that I was never going back. That I would have to accept things as they were. And so a new adventure unfolded. My life changed completely, I faced unimaginable things. Events, circumstances, thoughts shaped my new nature. And the old one was smothered, the old adventurous; eager for new things nature became only a small forgotten part of my nature. So the new me took the journey of visiting my childhood home. The new me that missed my old self terribly.
I stepped out of the airport and breathed in deeply, it was like breathing in the first fresh breath of spring. After leaving my luggage at the apartment I was supposed to stay at, I left everything behind and went for a stroll alone.
It was like a walk in the past... So much had changed and yet I recognised every single place. Looking at all the places, the streets, the monuments, the people; all changed so much and yet familiar nonetheless. Time had changed much, but for me I had travelled back in time. Travelled back to what was once my home, back to all the memories, back to all the safety.
I made my way to the sea. When I was a child I used to often come to a place here at the seashore. It was sort of like a hollow carved in the cliffs by the waves, there I used to sit whenever I wanted some time alone with myself. Serene and peaceful the waves slightly touching my feet, the hollow was still there. After 11 years I still remembered that place, and it was still there, waiting for me.
As I sat there watching the gentle waves swaying and lightly caressing my feet, I was more at peace in my mind as I have never been in the past 11 years. I was whole again, the hollowness that I had felt since I had left was filled.
But there was something wrong, I could feel it. Something was just not right. And in my heart I knew. I had come back to fill up one hole of my life but I had failed to realise that in doing so I had left part of my heart back from where I had come from. I could not be complete without it.
I could not be complete without the part of my heart that belonged to those I loved. I was back in the same position that I was in 11 years ago. But this time I was happy.
