moving back to your hometown: a nostalgic minefield

Hey friends! Welcome to my very first Sunday Spiral, where I word vomit way too much personal information for your brain to consume. Sundays are for spiraling, I don't make the rules. I am posting this on a Monday morning though... The spiraling yesterday made me question if I should even write and post this, but here we are!

This week, like most actually, I am thinking about nostalgia! I am such a nostalgic a$$ b*tch, its kind of embarrassing sometimes. I wish I did not romanticize my past as much as I did, but I do. I don't even think that is the worst trait to have though, I also worry about the future!

If you know anything about me, my camera roll is the most sacred thing to me. I maintain it so well... like I am really high maintenance and annoying about it. It is oddly important for everything to be in its own folders and to periodically go through every picture and delete the bad unnecessary ones. I think this allows me to organize my life through pictures and have memories to look back on that truly make me appreciate every era of my life. I am a Virgo mars, in case you were curious.

Any who, every time I go through my photos, I am reminded that life is not that way anymore and it never will be. Everything is fleeting, and the truth is, I will always find something to be nostalgic about. That's why I am doing my best to just remain present, because future me always looks back with rose colored glasses and finds something to appreciate about a past moment, so I want to just appreciate all the things presently as they are happening. Every phase of my life deserves the same level of gratitude and awareness.

As I create more folders, with more memories, I am painfully reminded about the passing of time. Sometimes I forget I am 25. Hear me out though, I am a fresh 25, like I was 24 only a few months ago! It's not that 24 felt more comfortable for me though. I don't know if I have ever been comfortable with aging since I was 16.

As I go through my camera roll, I am reminded of how different things are and how life is a constant stream of change.

I still have the same tattoos I got when I was 20, I dress a bit differently now, I still love taking photos of the mountains, I do my makeup now in a way that I never thought I would.

I look in the mirror though and I don't see 16 year old me anymore, not physically at least. That was almost a decade ago and that makes me sick to my stomach. 10 years ago, I had One Direction posters hanging in my room, and now I am old enough to be kicked off my parents healthcare. Life is... multidimensional like that!

Nostalgia is the most painful emotion to me. It feels so bittersweet. It is a beautiful feeling often, but one that often comes with sorrow, because we will never fully be able to recreate that moment. It's honestly what makes life so unique and special. Everyday is full of new memories, each slightly different from the day before.

Nostalgia tends to hit me everyday though, since I live in my hometown right now. If I am being honest, I am scared I jinxed myself by getting the coordinates of my hometown tattooed on me when I was 18, as a goodbye tribute. I love it here though, don't get me wrong. There are so many aspects I love about it, besides it being my hometown, which does drive me a bit mad sometimes.

I drive to the gym and pass my ex's boyfriend's house. I am reminded of all the bullsh*t and mistreatment I put up with for far too long because high school boys are... awful.

I go for a walk and run into my 6th grade teacher. We haven't spoken in years and she doesn't remember how old I am and when I tell her, she gasps the typical "wow I feel so old" remarks. It quickly segues into bombardment of "what are you doing with your life right now" and "Have you found your preferred stream of income that you want to maintain for the next 50 years?"

I go grab a latte at the coffee shop. The girl taking my order was 4 grades below me in high school. She is about to graduate college and now I feel so old.

Here comes the spiral part, of this Sunday Spiral because how did time actually pass and why did I actually get older? I really never imagined what life would be like post college. I spent my entire life just needing to get to college. It was truly the only thing that mattered to me. It felt like the only time period that would actually exist. It came and went just as fast as anything else though. Now here we are, post grads.

I think we all can understand how painful nostalgia can be, I know you got my two cents on it! In the rest of this blog post, I am going to be talking to my fellow friends who have moved back to their hometown after graduating college, or maybe you never left! This can also apply if you are home visiting for summer and winter breaks. This won't be relatable at all for a lot of people, but I know there are people out there that know these feelings.

Here are some things I have learned and realized over my time back in my hometown.

regression is pretty much unavoidable

Obviously, this blog post will be entirely me projecting my own experiences onto you. If something is not relatable at all, that is totally fine! I do find it almost impossible to believe though that not everyone regresses back a little bit when surrounded by an old environment. When you are around your parents to any capacity, it is extremally natural to fall back into that parent child relationship dynamic.

I really don't think it matters if you have had the most perfect childhood or not, your parents are going to always make you feel like a child. Maybe as you have aged, you guys have grown closer and they feel more like your best friends. That is a huge possibility for a lot of people. I am a lot closer to my parents as I have aged and while they are some of my favorite people, that dynamic will never fully be a friendship. At the end of the day, those are your parents and you will always be their child. That is my opinion, of course. I do find myself having a better relationship with my family when we are not under the same roof.

I don't think regression is necessarily the worst thing always. It can be nice to surrender back to that position, it can be really comforting and safe for a lot of people. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle. I am constantly stuck between feeling like it isn't possible to be the best version of myself when I am home and being home allows me to work on myself in a familiar environment.

I find myself feeling like an angsty teen a lot more when I am brooding in my childhood bedroom vs when I was living alone in college. I have accepted that there will likely always be a little regression for me, and to address those feelings as they come up. That is the best that I can do.

i am not the best version of myself here

Again, this is my experience. There are so many people who thrive in their home environment, and we all are meant for different paths, but being home forever is definitely not mine. My experience with being home is so bittersweet. I love being home in the sense that it is a massive comfort zone for me now. Not always in a good way, I find that I can feel really suffocated and stuck here.

I just am not the best version of my self when I am home. I love how I have the space to kind of not think! How amazing is it to be able to focus on mental health and unpacking trauma in your childhood bedroom while not having the stress of paying rent?? It is wonderful! It has turned into a space where I can dive into my subconscious and focus on healing parts of my life, without the financial stress of paying my own rent. As much as I love how easy it is for me to feel overall safe here, is such a massive privilege and something I likely will not find anywhere anytime soon, especially in the United States. Hence, why I will not be moving out in this country anytime soon.

I am such an introspective person, and I am like that outside of my hometown, but much less so! I find being back home means a lack of community for me, but also I feel 16, and when I was 16, I really never hung out with anyone outside of school and sports practice. I don't know how to be an adult here really. I can't help but feel somewhat isolated, even when I am connecting with people I have known since I was a child.

it is scary to be authentically me in my hometown

This is something I realized recently and I cannot believe it has taken me so long to fully put into words why it can be really difficulty to exist in your hometown. I am just scared to be myself. For me, being myself includes several identities that I was not aware of when I lived here fulltime last. The problem with being in my small hometown, is everyone has a preconceived perception of me, that is mainly who I was at 16. This is normal though. It is ridiculous to expect everyone to have access to the new you, and they shouldn't anyways! It is just hard to live in the shadow of my past self, to feel like I am letting people down by being back home.

Realistically, I don't believe anyone is expecting me to be the exact same person I was when I graduated high school and left my hometown for the first time. If they do expect that, I think that is a ridiculous way to view someone else. I honestly feel like it is just a self imposed pressure to remain stuck in their perception box of me. At the same time though, I think some people feel threatened to learn that you are no longer the same person you once were. They feel out of the loop and left behind and sometimes those can be difficult feelings to navigate for people.

Currently, I am working on letting people deal with whatever perceptions they have of me. They are none of my business. I am allowed to take up space and be myself, at any cost. Not everyone will understand this new version of yourself, but that is life. Easier said than done.

i am judging myself more than anyone else

I have always been someone who has been heavily critical of people who stay in their hometowns. From a very young age, I expressed so much judgment for the people that chose this as their life path. To a certain extent, I still feel this way. I think it is so valuable to leave your hometown, even if it is just for a little bit of time, something is always better than nothing. I went to college for 4 years in another state and spent a better part of the last year traveling to 15 countries, so I have definitely got to experience a little bit of life outside of my hometown bubble. You learn so much, and it helps expand your way of thinking. Everyone would benefit from that exposure, I wish it was more accessible to people.

Anyways, I just judged the sh*t out of people that lived in my hometown still. I remember being 16 and seeing old graduates in their 20's move back and it felt like a massive walk of shame to me. It felt like they were waiving a white flag of surrender, almost to say that they failed out in the real world. In those moments, I swore to myself that I wouldn't be the lost puppy to come running back home with my tail between my legs. I was going to get out of here and never look back. Clearly, I was projecting my own insecurities onto these people's lives.

I initially was only moving back for 6 months. With unplanned circumstances, I had to stay in my town longer. Because of this, I have held a ton of judgment towards myself over my time back home. I always judged people like this when I was younger and old habits die hard. All of a sudden I was the person that I was always looking at with pity. I began to feel so much shame.

First off, I am glad that at 25 I am a less judgmental piece of sh*t. Second, I don't think people are actually judging you as much as you think. This applies to everything. We are constantly judging ourselves through the lens of another person. If you find yourself thinking "ugh they probably think I am being so weird right now" it is really YOU who thinks you are being weird right now. You can't read another persons mind and perception is reality, right? Don't let your thoughts about yourself convince you that that is the only reality.

Most people are so invested in their own lives, they don't truly care about yours. That sounds harsh, but thank god that's the truth. You have the freedom to live life how you please, people do not actually care what decisions you make. If they do, that is super odd and they are probably projecting their own insecurities onto you anyways.

That's all I got this week, friends. If you read this far, I see you, and I appreciate you. I can be kind of a rambler, and I am sure my blog posts probably reflect my unmedicated ADHD, so I hope you were able to gain something from reading. I tried to keep to short (ish) and sweet this week. I am thankful to have a space to write and get all of my thoughts out regardless. Let's spiral together again next week and remember to a live a life that charges your soul! :)

with love,

Jordan