There's No Place Like Home

Two nights in a row, now, I've had dreams where I was back in the city that I grew up in. Vivid dreams, where I can see places that I used to frequent as a kid.

While it's no longer safe to live there (lots & lots of gang activity), I still miss it alot. I still feel like a part of me is there. The last time that I went through, a lot of things were different. But it still felt like home.

While I think that the Video Flicks store is still there (with its sign that, from a certain angle, looked like it said...um...well, let's just say that it didn't look like it said Video Flicks). The old comic shop that I spent an inordinate amount of time riding to & fro from is long gone. The Lucky's grocery store is now some warehouse-type, bag your own groceries kind of place. Miller's Outpost went under, but I can't remember what was there the last time I was in town. The old drive-in movie theatre (that I can still remember seeing "The Towering Inferno" at when I was just a wee one) has long since been bulldozed & had a shopping center built over it.

Even the house I grew up in (which I would've gladly taken had the rest of the town not been falling apart), the one that was instantly recognizable as it was the only green house on the block, has changed. It's white & surrounded by a wroughtiron fence. The new owners seem to take care of it, but, I dunno...the house seems almost - sad being stuck behind iron bars. Even eleven or so years after it'd been sold, it still seems weird to not be able to just walk in. I've thought at times that, if the town changed & I could afford to do it, I'd love to buy that house back.

My family's house.

My house.

My home.

*sigh* I guess I can still live there in my dreams.