My Hometown

My hometown has, in retrospect, been for me a hard experience I lived through. At least, that's how I remember it. Those dusted streets arranged with squatting clapboard houses all dressed in drab, designed by someone who must have thought sameness was purity. But it just proved it made the sterile streets that much easier to pass through. It was too easy to leave, a home should be hard to leave behind. But I just put one thought in front of the other until my mind was completely out of town. Then my body followed. I never even bothered looking back. Do I miss it? Maybe. Sure, I miss my childhood friends. But mostly, it's something like when I'd miss a toothache or that broken ankle I had one time. Missing it will be my privelege. But can I stay away is a different question. Hometowns go beyond being a home; they're a way of life. Their pull is like a tide that never ceases. It keeps tugging at you in very small ways that tire you out after awhile and you want to just stop fighting it and float away with the current, sleepily drifting out to sea. Your hometown is in your blood. I may go back home someday, who knows? Maybe I'll put that on my bucket list, someday.