Some of me exists on Pepperdine’s campus. She lays on the couches in Payson, looking over the Pacific and wondering what she did to deserve to be here. She’s busy making alleged lifelong friends and exploring a new world – too busy to worry about anything involving her future. She smokes on the beach while the sun sets and marvels at the fact that she gets to exist here.
Another fragment of my being is in Florence. Alcohol clouds her vision, but that’s okay because the part of me that exists here isn’t sober. She’s free, she’s impulsive, she’s careless. She gets off the train with her closest friends, and they head toward the villa on Viale Milton. They laugh at the stories they’re accumulating as they travel the world together. They talk about their futures fondly, not worrying about the difficulties to come (the ones they have yet to learn about).
There’s another part of me existing in Bloomington (mostly on Hillside Drive). The part of me who’s there wakes up to her two best friends, the ones who know her best. She shares her life with them, and her load is lighter because of it. They find solace in the quiet, gentle outskirts of the town and in each other. She is learning more about herself here, and she’s healing in ways she’s desperately needed to for a long time.
The most broken piece of me resides in Blue Springs. She is filled with uneasiness – constantly caught between the gripping love and gripping pain she feels while in her hometown. She grew up here, happy and blissfully unaware. This place was a refuge; it offered more safety and love than anywhere else she’s ever known. Now, pain lingers all around her; it boils over the edges of every memory she’s attached to this place and it distorts them. She dreams of leaving it all behind, although the thought of leaving saddens her too.
Will I always yearn for the parts of me I’ve left behind?
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