It's funny how all of a sudden you can feel so overwhelmingly lonely. It's funny how it's been nearly two years since I've moved away from that little spot nearly hidden away from the rest of the world, nestled between the redwoods and the sea, and yet if I spend just a little too long remembering it, I get this pain in my chest. Humboldt State University was one of the best things that has ever happened to me, and like many of the best things in life, its effects on me were both devastating and permanent.
I chose to attend Humboldt on an impulse. I chose it because it was as far away from home as my parents were willing to send me. It was the only college I applied to because I knew I would get in. And I did. It was immature of me to go. It was irresponsible of me to go. And yet there was nothing I was ever more sure of in my life.
Looking back, I should have fought harder to stay there. I've had it easy growing up, and it was easy to rely on my parent's generosity. It was selfish of me to get angry when the budget got tight. I should have stayed and made my own way, proved that I could be independent and make something of myself on my own. Maybe it's because I didn't think that I could though, or maybe it was because it was easier to make myself a victim. At the time I really felt like I didn't have choice. I know better now, that there is always a choice. But, regardless, I moved back to the sun and the smog of Southern California. I left the trees and the rain, and the people that hid in them.
I say hid because you don't go to a place like Humboldt unless you are trying to get away from some place else. I didn't realize it then, but that's the truth of the matter. It's easy to hide yourself there. Things move slower there. They are quieter there. You can be exactly who you want, as strange or as dirty or opinionated or unopinionated as you please. No one minds much of anything up there. It was the most welcoming place I'd ever seen. It was a safe place. It was easy to stop for a visit and stay forever. It's the kind of place that traps you like that, and you don't even mind.
I'm graduating now from California State University Los Angeles, I'll have my Bachelors and I'm struggling to find excitement in the accomplishment. Nearly two years at this school and I've yet to form a single sentimental attachment to it. The closer I come to the end, the more I look back to where I started and the stranger it all seems to me.
I went back to Humboldt last year for a visit, and it all seemed changed. I realized though that it hadn't. It was me. I couldn't fit back into the place that I'd left. I didn't fit anymore. Maybe that's what makes me so lonely when I think about it. I sit and reminisce about the people I love there, about the rain and the trees, and I realize I can never really go back. Not really, because what I miss is a time, and that time is over.
I don't regret anything. I think it was important for me to leave when I did, as much as it broke my heart. It's easy to get stuck anywhere if you stay for too long, and good things came of my leaving. Knowing that though, doesn't make you miss it any less. I think that the older we get, the more we lose pieces of ourselves along the way. We scatter them across the places and the people that we meet. We make room for new pieces, but we never fit back together quite the same.
