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I decided to go to bed early last night, in the midst of watching A Very Long Engagement on netflix. I've been staying up later and later, as my classes are in the evening, but I thought I should rectify that in order to rejoin normal society. So I hit the sack.
Then about 15 minutes ago, I woke up. I turned over and stared at my fan, feeling that cold you have at 5 o'clock in the morning when your body is at low-tide. I had dreamed about my old house in Lakeside. The place I'd spent 11 years of my childhood, from 3rd to 12th grade (if I'd had one), growing up. In the dream, there was a party going on at my house. Although I couldn't see who was there, in my mind's eye I know it was people like the youth group from LCPC or friends from school. My parents were from the era too. I recognized them as the people they were back then. My father, the judicial law giver, sitting and smiling in his big blue chair. My mother, chatting, her mouth speaking and smiling at the same time. The only other character I remember clearly is Lucas Coleman, who just happened to be hanging out. I remember him because when I woke up I immediately recalled a time when he had come over unnannounced, while I was watching a movie with my girlfriend, and we had awkwardly all watched a movie together. I'm sure there were others. I would be remiss for not inviting everyone into my subconscious for a party, I suppose.
I guess that's the terrible thing about dreams, that you can only really remember the end clearly, and even that seems to be disintegrating slowly, like sand from a hourglass. In any case, the end of my dream found me waking in the middle of the night. I was up in my room, except it wasn't quite the way I'd left it. There was a large desk in the middle of it. I went to turn on the light, in order to see what we'd all been working on, but the light wouldn't turn on. All around me were the party goers, now sleeping quietly in heaps and mounds. I opened my door and walked out of my room. In the hall, I looked into the bathroom and saw more people sleeping. They were on the counter and the floor, blocking the door from opening all the way. I can picture them curled up in the tub, quietly slumbering in my subconscious. I turned away.
I went past my parents room and down the stairs. I came to the kitchen and found my father, up early and tinkering. I asked him what was wrong with the lights. I don't remember what he said exactly, but I remember a feeling like "I guess that's just the way things are."
It leaves me with a feeling I can't describe. I feel a sort of mixed nostalgia tinged with longing. Some might say they're the same thing, but I know this isn't. This is counterbalance with the feeling of "so it goes" from the end of my dream.
Sometimes I really do miss every one I grew up with. I miss them in the way people miss tv shows they watched as a kid. I miss them, but only the way they were. The memory of knowing them. The memory of watching hey arnold at night when you're eating fruit loops on the couch. I miss them just as they were when I knew them, but I understand that they are all different now, no matter how much they seem similar. The Kyles and Joels and Deannas are all strangers with similar faces and names to their counterparts in my memories.
I've spent the last few years of my life sleeping on floors and couches and in other strange places. Now that I'm back in a bed, back in school, my mind feeds me the similarities with my old childhood home. It's one of those funny things your brain does, I guess. No matter how much time you spend adventuring or traveling or learning, it puts you in your place. It knows were you came from and reminds you of it, highlighting the before and after of your existence. In my dream, I see a lights gone out. I wonder what it was?