i got a text this weekend from an unknown number with my old area code. it just said, “goodbye”. 

i racked my brain over who it was from. i’ve left a lot of people in my earlier life. halfway through my mental catalog and several searches into the origin of the number, it dawned on me that this was probably just a creative bot. i stopped going through my list of expired relationships and let myself be satisfied enough with that answer.

but damn if it isn’t haunting me.

there are a lot of metaphorical ghosts in my hometown. i think about them intensely and frequently. i’ve heard that ruminating on the past is a sign that you are unfulfilled in the present, and i think about that intensely and frequently, too, as if the nostalgia signals something faulty in my life. 

it is moreso about love than about longing. the love i have for the people, the places, the trees i used to know is still alive and well in me, as intensely as it was when i was interacting with them. but since i cannot develop those external relationships anymore, i cultivate them internally. i add layers to things in my existing life – to honor the incredible irises that lined my driveway growing up, i named my dog iris. i connect with the wild irises in the woods here. stories build from the experiences i had when i was young. from the ground up. everything is layered like a topographic map and will probably continue to grow as long as i am alive.

i don’t desire to go back to my hometown; i have visited and my realities clashed so hard that i sat paralyzed in front of my childhood trees and sobbed. i was sad that i couldn’t live in multiple realities at the same time. but i was also just overwhelmed from holding too much at once. 

this feeling is the same here in appalachia – except i do desire to go back to how things were before the hurricane destroyed it all. it is uncomfortable to carry such an intense longing. my life is structurally identical from before the devastation, but the obliteration of my surroundings has changed everything. it has begun a trail of thought in which i recognize how dependent my existence is on my environment.