The weird thing about moving back home is...

...bumping into people from high school or from neighboring high schools that you kinda knew or that know people you know. Don't get me wrong. This isn't a bad weird thing. Just a weird thing. Mostly because I haven't lived in Connecticut for around 13 years! Every other place I've lived in since graduating high school has practically no connection to my hometown. Although, when living in Colorado, I ran into a girl from my high school class while I was working at Banana Republic. Twice. It wasn't a "Don't I know you?" moment either. It was a "Omigosh, we had classes together but weren't ever really close friends but I know you well enough that it would be rude not to say hello and shoot the breeze, so Hey, howareya?" moment. Also, not a bad thing, just kind of an awkward moment. Especially when it's been over ten years since graduation and my current profession was part-time retail/full-time grad student. Nice.

Anyway, back to being home, I guess I just feel that it's weird now because it could legitimately happen at any time. Today, I was at a conference down in Hamden, CT for my after-school job and I ended up in a group project with a guy who recognized me from high school. I didn't recognize him, but he was three classes behind me. Turns out, he hung out with my high school boyfriend's family a lot in high school. I hadn't thought about those years of my life in a really long time. It felt so weird to be recognized from a time period in my life that I rarely think about, but I had clearly made some sort of impression. I'm used to running into people from college. North Parkers are everywhere! And usually, if I run into them, we both know each other from a more recent period of time. But I feel like when you see someone from your past, the only context you know is the one that you knew them in from yesteryear. So for the first time since graduating high school, I'm remembering who I was in high school. It's a lot less about the running into people (awkward or not) and more about re-figuring myself out.

My last romantic relationship changed my perspective on who I saw myself as. And not in a good way. I had dinner with one of my very best sister-friends this past week and it really hit me how falsely my ex had seen who I was when I saw her reaction to some of the things I allowed him to convinced me of. In fact, as I type, the Bruno Mars song "Just the Way You Are" has begun to play on my Pandora radio station. This song is exactly opposite of how I felt with my ex. It really doesn't matter whether he actually thought I needed to change or not. The point is that for the majority of our relationship, I didn't feel as though the person I am was ever good enough for him. Or maybe it was more that he was somehow convinced that who I actually was wasn't actually me. Either way, this song awakes an ache in me because I never heard these words from him. So somewhere in my unconscious awareness of myself I began to see myself as who he saw me and not as who I truly was. I don't think this was intentional on his part or on mine. I truly think he loved me the best that he could. Putting me into his own little box was possibly the only way he could deal with whatever insecurities I apparently brought out in him. And I thought being in that box was loving him. But it wasn't loving him. More importantly, it wasn't loving myself.

So now, I'm reprocessing who I am. I'm reprogramming myself and hoping to find those pieces of my self that got lost in the midst of that relationship. Of course, I'm still me. I'm still the same girl who dances her heart out in her room, sings at the top of her lungs in the car, and is fascinated by Paris and the French culture. It's just that post this relationship, I'm re-realizing that these quirks are positive attributes and part of the reason why my friends and family love me. They aren't just qualities to "accept" about me. They are qualities to love about me because I love these things about me.

I find it interesting that just as that relationship ended, I was packing up to move back home. To my family, my roots, and where I went through many of those life-changing events that helped shaped me as a person. And also to where people know me as the girl I was at seventeen and not as the woman I am at thirty-one. I am suddenly amazed at how perfectly God has coordinated this healing and transitional stage of life. Because it is weird to be reminded of my childhood in so many concrete ways when it is least expected. But also kind of amazing, soul soothing, and self asserting. It's weird, but I like it.