death and decay, or: a trip to my hometown

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i have practically been listening to "guilty" by the rasmus on repeat ever since returning. rest in peace, cormac mccarthy

a homecoming has the potential to be a wonderful thing for wayward souls. perhaps seeing old acquaintances who still reside there can serve as a nice reminder of how important and influential deep-reaching friendships are in life. or maybe the act of revisiting places of importance during one's childhood brings back pleasant memories long believed to be lost forever. new energy to be harvested from being reminded of how many good times have been had. if c. g. lewis is to be believed, the past pales in comparison to the good things still waiting for us in the dense nebula that is the future

for me, returning after 10 years away massaged my soul in the same way airborne anthrax gently massages a person's lungs before they die. it's a slow, creeping kind of pain that my visit has set free. i imagine the process as stepping on a land mine left over from past wars, though the explosion takes place over multiple days or weeks in super slow-motion, leaving you physically intact while rupturing your emotional core. but i'm getting ahead of myself

one

after about 4 hours of journeying, i remember leaving the train and stepping out into the central station forecourt, sporting a grin with an unheard of width. the amount of school trips that began at this place. my feet automatically carried me towards the city center, no navigation needed. like i was following tracks in the snow that i had left for myself 20 years earlier

it's strange. the layout of the city is untouched, the same buildings you walked past as a kid still stand tall. you can go to the same bakeries and shops you visited back then, complain about the same multi-lane traffic hotspots with slow-to-flip streetlights, even climb the same exact trees you did back then. i would describe the feeling as both heartwarming and soul-crushingly alienating, since no matter how much time has passed, you can always return, and the same exact location will welcome you like you never left. however, it's also a reminder that you are nothing under the sun. spend time here or not, it doesn't matter to anyone or anything. the earth will keep rotating, people will carry on with their lives

none of that mattered to me in that moment, though. it felt good to be back, it felt like, dare i say, home? i wandered towards and then around the shopping mall, checked into the hotel soon after and put my feet up for a while until the reason for my trip down memory lane, my childhood friend chris, was ready to meet up

two

over the weekend, we went to some very serene places, drank healing mineral water, had the same pizza we always used to order as kids, embarked on a hiking trip near the austrian border, had deep discussions on a variety of topics with and without his girlfriend, and went to grab a morning cappuccino shortly before my departure, reminiscing on past and present - basically an all-around good time. it was an extraordinary situation for me to still be connected to someone this closely after a decade, and i am truly blessed to have a fantastic friend like him

i made my way back to the train station, got some magnets as keepsakes and boarded an extremely cramped and even smellier regional train that slowly transported me to munich where i realized i was about two hours earlier than i needed to be. a new ticket cost about 150 quid, but the prospect of staying at munich central for two hours would have probably been more expensive in terms of emotional damage, so i double-booked, got excited for my seat and a quick journey back

the train was on time, but it didn't take long before bad news hit. the compartment my seat was located in had some issues with the electronics, completely disabling the ac. it was subsequently closed off, so i took a seat on the lovely ice floor. during the journey, some people decided to enter the track bed, ultimately causing a delay of 61 minutes

at nuernberg, some lady got on and nicely demanded i make room for her on the floor. as the doors were practically closing, a kid got on, walked down a compartment, hurried back and asked to be let off since he got the wrong train. it was too late. he would now have to travel until erfurt and hope another train would carry him back to augsburg. i was reminded that my day could be worse, so i counted my blessings and happily remained on the floor before getting off at my stop a couple of hours later

a mistimed intermezzo

back in elementary school, i had a classmate named diren. a turkish girl, tall-ish, with a bubbly personality. one of the nicest people i had the pleasure of being around. i remember listening to will smith's "switch" with her on my mp3 player i brought to school, and her dancing in her chair. i'm like 98% sure it was this trekstor model. if memory serves correctly, this was around 4th grade, practically right before our ways would part. we played "who is it" in day care, exchanged gossip in the gymnasium there and enjoyed the ball bath together

this person in this youthful form, like all the other close friends from that time, exists exclusively in my head. if i were to walk by her on the street today, i would probably never recognize her, just like she would never recognize me. the only thing keeping her alive is my memory. the actual person is presumably gone forever, never to be seen again. i cannot accurately describe the intensity with which my desire to meet her again burns, to know that she's doing well. why her specifically, and why this desire all of a sudden, that i don't know

the reason i'm even contemplating all of this is the walk i took around town on sunday morning, the day of my departure. it felt like there was insight to be found at the "theaters of war" of my childhood as i called them. the pull of these places was magical, almost in a disturbing way. i walked past my kindergarten, schools i was enrolled in, apartment buildings i or some of my friends had lived in back then, one of them being diren's place. her family's old apartment is conveniently located near the day care center. i also happened to walk past that cursed building and spent a solid 10 minutes just reflecting on what the hell even happened there

all this loss, this deserting of friends due to social incompetence or shyness (practically the same thing) or enrollment in different schools taking you different places or puberty going crazy, causing negative feelings for one another. it's a natural part of life but an especially difficult one for me to stomach. almost like i was made to exclusively exist in the past, reminiscing, but never living

it's sad to admit that the last time i felt like i had friends i loved like brothers and sisters was 20 years ago. that's not entirely true, of course, since stuttgart also gave me a small crew consisting of people that i loved like they were my own blood, but it feels less real the more you age. it's even sadder to admit that none of these people that i cherished and desperately want around me are still part of my life

afterword

when i think of causes of trauma, what primarily comes to mind is an abrupt, destructive force disassembling your life at once. i had never really considered those hidden, open wounds that keep hemorrhaging and result from events i would probably call laughable if another person vented to me about them. a childhood crush that years later trampled on your feelings and refused to even acknowledge your existence? some important friends you spent a couple of formative years with as an elementary school kid not being part of your life anymore? big deal, buddy

it's unclear to me why these things are affecting me the way they are, and i'm hesitant to call it trauma, but it sure feels bad. standing in front a day care i spent at max some months in 20 years ago evoking the urge to cry. a school building completely demolishing my self-confidence decades after i was bullied there

i hope i can make peace with these emotions and maybe even call some of these influential people from my childhood my friends once more at some point

I’m a negative of a person. All I want is blackness, blackness and silence - Sylvia Plath