I put all the things from you in a box today.

Being home is strange.

I guess I haven't really felt it until now...maybe because before I was always home for a REASON or because other people were home too or because somehow I still felt like nothing had changed. But this time feels real.

Being away makes you see just how much things...and you...have changed.
Going to swim sectionals today was made me see it more. I can't believe it was only a year ago...it feels like more. That I was the one on deck, putting on my suit, nervous and excited at the national anthem, jumping at the blocks. Only a year ago that my dad and you were in the stands when I looked up. Only a year ago that it was over.

Maybe I'm stupid, but I feel endlessly older.

Being there just reinforced how very far removed from it I am now.
It made me realize that no matter how much you want to keep things how they are, sometimes you just outgrow it.
You can't keep it the way it was. I will never go to a high school football game and cheer and scream and eat Steak N Shake or Starbucks with friends after. I will never go in the locker room after a hard practice with the girls. I will never ride the bus home, or cheer at the end of the lane, or have that undefinable feeling of team closeness like before. I am not in high school, and that is not my team anymore, and that's something you can't get back.
It's sad, in a way. But not. Because there are new things to replace it.
It will always be that way.

Like coming home. It IS your home, but it's not the same. I come home to a couch that's not the same and a room and a bed that aren't REALLY mine. They live their lives every day without me here. And I live mine without them. I can always COME back, but I will never again live in this house like I used to. But new things will take its place.

That can apply to a lot of situations.

It's just strange.