Here in the Going, Going, Gone

   Each step I take, it haunts me.  These are the last I will take here.  I lament my legs' every motion, as they propel me forward.  Watching the sunlight play on the frozen pond, realization sinks to the bottom of my stomach and settles there.  I will never take this walk home again.  I smile wistfully, recalling a hot day spent splashing and laughing in the pond with an open-eyed musician I should have gotten to know better.  And my final encounter on this trail with that beautiful Nature Boy I never got enough time with.
   This sketchy little city was perfect.  I remember my first night here, still debating the move.  Falling asleep, I knew my mind was made up.  This was it.  This place would belong to me.
   And it did.  From the moment I set foot in the North Country I knew it was mine.  From the vague, idealized concept to the chaotic reality of a vision actualized, every single detail was precisely what I had imagined.  This was the very first place my dreams ever came true.
   I could weave meandering, awestruck paragraphs detailing the people I met and what I managed to absorb from them in the too-fleeting moments of the year and a half I spent basking in the frigid air, but I'm too self-absorbed to bother.  That's not what I'm dwelling on as I pack my things and leave.  I'm thinking about myself.
    The soles of my feet will miss the sloping streets of this town, exploring and parading through them.  I feel a soft ache seep through them as they become conscious of the loss.  My bones will miss the bitter, biting cold that cut straight through to them, ruthlessly.
   I'm so thankful for what this place gave me.  Each of the 500 miles between myself and the rest of my life provided me with the beautiful, overwhelming opportunity to escape.  Outside the confines of expectations, I was finally able to examine myself and differentiate between who I am and who I had always assumed I should be.
   I am aware that college does this for everyone.  I don't think the universalness of the experience detracts from its significance. 
   What I leave with is gratitude.  Immense, flooding, staggering gratitude.  I watch the scenery disappear into nostalgia with a forlorn smile, mouthing Thank you, lovely.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  For every single moment.  Thank you for being exactly where I needed you to be, exactly when I needed you to be there.  Thank you for belonging to me.  Thank you for allowing me to need you.  Thank you for being everything I needed.  Thank you for being my idea come to life.  Thank you for being exactly where I belonged.
   And the knowledge that I'm not meant to be there anymore.  At some point I needed to confront myself.  And you made me do it.  And I will never forget that.  I may forget everything else.  But I will never forget that.
   I return home.  To reunite.  To reassess.  To recover, recuperate, rediscover, release, reform, rekindle.  Reconnect.  To become more than a stranger to my niece and nephew, yammering toddlers now, though I left them cooing infants.  Every inch they've grown without me has torn my heart out.  I want to snatch those sweet, smushy babies back from the cruel hands of time and start over.  I want every missed month back.  Though I needed those months in the merciless, forgiving mountains.
   Someday I will find somewhere else I belong.  I will again imagine a place into being and then immerse myself in it.  I will step into my fantasy-turned-reality and know This is it.  This is me.  This is perfect.  Until then, I am here, home, missing those beautiful goddamn mountains.  Home alone to contend with my illusions and delusions.  But I finally know the difference.