Nostalgia

(Based on the prompt: Write a story where the first and last words are the same)

Time changes a place. Or maybe we’re changed when we come back to them. Perhaps we change them unawares.

I think inside of us, in the corner of our hearts where hope beats back extinction, we expect familiar spaces to remain in stasis. As if our memory will forever represent reality. If not preservation, we desperately grasp at recreation. Pitiful to watch. Even more pitiful to experience.

I stand at the cemetery gate where my childhood friend is buried, the wind whipping my coat against my legs. The weather seems to be trying to push me away from here, herding me home into the warm comfort, absent of painful reminders. Why should this place be painful to me? It feels like I was carrying the bitter burden of everyone buried here, like they were assigning blame to me for the lack of care and visits that evidently ran this place into the ground.

I used to spend quite a bit of time here in my high school days, in this cemetery, sitting by Mandy’s grave. Strange, as much as I used to imagine coming back here after many years had gone by, now that I’m here, nothing is as it should be. Who decides how it should be? Who's really responsible here, for the ideal or for the wrongdoing?

I walk through the gate and approach her resting place, hoping for resolution. Is it a deficit, or surplus, of emotion, or perhaps just the “wrong” emotion? I’m not sure what I expected.

I breathe deeply, asking myself why I really came here. Surely this couldn't be a mission of mercy, for what was Mandy benefiting from my presence? For that matter, what was I benefiting? Some sort of twisted reassurance, maybe, that I wasn't in the ground yet, or that I was a better person for having subjected myself to this atmosphere. I try to get out of my head by a more thorough scan of my surroundings.

The flower bracket hasn’t been filled for a long time. Her headstone is more faded, moss creeping over the edges and filling in the lines of her epitaph. "Full of life - taken too soon". She was full of life. She was the reason most of the time that I got in trouble. Then again, she was also the reason most of the time that I had fun. Sometimes I wish I felt worse about her passing, but an awful thought always scrolls through my mind, that with all the trouble she was always leaping into headfirst, the fact that she died in a car crash and not a worse way is the real surprise. Then I berate myself for being a horrible, hostile, heartless beast who speaks ill of the dead. Anyways, she really wasn't a bad girl at heart. I guess she just didn't have anyone telling her not to do the things she was doing. I've never told anyone my thoughts about her passing. It's easier to let them suppose I was full of silent grief than the truth: There was some heartache, but mostly relief.

I can see this spot as it was then, disconcertingly straight and tidy. I used to know the friendly groundskeeper who always seemed to take the upkeep of this place personally, as if any damage was an affront to him. Never caught his name. It was kind of better that way, like he was a storybook character that only I knew. I remember wondering if he knew anyone buried here, if that was why he so carefully tended to every detail of the cemetery.

I envision my past self leaning against the side of the stone, doing strangely normal activities like homework or listening to music, letting my thoughts run free. My siblings thought it was weird that I chose to spend time in such a gloomy venue, and my parents’ loud silence told me they were mentally asking themselves if this was a cry for help.

I try to call to mind what my motives were all those years ago. Maybe there was some social resistance, a feeling of accomplishment that by contemplating death, I was dispelling the stereotype of a shallow teenager. Maybe there was some sentimentality in being close to my lost friend. Maybe it was a random impulse, indecipherable and disappointing. It’s impossible to tell now. In some ways, I'd rather not know every motive--I suspect I would often be repulsed at my overt narcissism. God, I guess you just can't get away from yourself, no matter how hard you try.

I do know that it wasn’t gloomy to me then. The cemetery was a beautiful spot, somewhere I could imagine my favorite fictional characters going to dream. It wavered perfectly between careful maintenance and nature’s embrace. Wildflowers, the lake view, the free canopy of sky; it all contributed to a feeling of comfort.

Today, however, the sky was charging admission for its display; the slate-gray clouds created a blanket, smothering whatever remnants of a light spirit that I came here with. Coming here after so much time away required me to pack hope along with my suitcase. I hadn't thought that little bit of hope to see my hometown as it once was would be so mercilessly scorned by the town I met upon my return. Would I even appreciate it if nothing changed? Human nature being what it is, probably not. That distasteful fact doesn't make this current reality any easier to swallow.

This was no longer a place of comfort. I felt confronted by it, even detected a tinge of betrayal around the edges. Was this place betrayed by my absence, or was I betrayed by its alteration? There was nothing either of us could do to fix it. I turned away with a heavy heart and walked home as the raindrops began to pelt my hat.

I suppose it's time.