Full Circle

Typical me, running away from moments that make my heart hurt. Literally, this time, as I head down Shoreline Drive in stiff patent leather slides better suited for boozy brunches than brisk walks.

Typical me from before, rather. Hundreds of dollars of teletherapy, meditation app subscriptions, and ad-free self-help podcasts have me identifying as some kind of resilient, gritty creature now. But nothing feels current while I’m here.

After two nights of sleeping in my childhood bedroom, waking up to a nostalgic jitter of light through the pear tree leaves outside my window, I feel too young to be making decisions for myself.

I slow down past the Jones’ old house, judging the garish blue the owners ruined the old white clapboard with. In the in-between space of school letting out and my parents coming home, we’d be outside where Mrs. Jones could keep an eye on us. My little brother Danny matched in age with their youngest, and my older sister Juliet, their oldest. I’d get a daily taste of being both a pest and an idol, with no real companion of my own.

Across the street was Grandma Jane. She had died a week after her husband, a week before I graduated from high school. She always used to look after my mom nearly as much as she looked after us, and I was so confused when I learned that she wasn’t our actual family member. I remember pangs of jealousy when we first met her real family -- sizing up the behavior of her granddaughter, wondering if I was more polite -- but Grandma Jane sent us off with the same number of purple saran-wrapped slices of banana bread, and loved us all the same.

The Rodgers’ house next door brought back such visceral memories that I sped by, patent slides flapping against my heels. I could still see Cecil rocking on the front porch, working on his 4th cigarette at 7:30am, looking simultaneously emaciated and pot-bellied, even though the updated house was no longer recognizable. We all knew the Rodgers’ didn’t fit into the neighborhood, but they’d been there the longest. James, their only son, was skinny and smelled like his house and was quite a bit older than we were but we included him anyway. It’s funny how even then we knew life was going to be difficult and different for him -- just because of his smoky smell? Or did we absorb more about their predicament than we thought?

I reached the curve at the end of Shoreline where it turned into my best friend Katie’s street. That one single curve separated the small, identical lots of Shoreline from the deepset ranch houses like the one she got to live in. Each house was a different color, had split levels or 2 stories, and still had the power to make me wish for cards I wasn’t dealt. When Katie’s parents downsized, she moved back in -- this time with her husband and newborn.

Katie called me last month when she heard. Her kids were screaming in the background, in such stark contrast to her solemn tone that I couldn’t help but laugh. She asked if she could help, knowing what I’d be tasked with since Danny and Juliet’s families kept them from dropping everything, and I declined at first. But walking back down Shoreline and seeing Katie on the phone, pacing around my childhood living room was the perfect circle I needed.

“I’ll forgive you for racing out of here if you just tell me what you’re thinking.” She said, whoever was on the phone still audible as she held it near her chest, “I need to know which you’re learning toward.”

After mom and dad’s car wreck, after the funeral, after we’d listed the house and gone back to our lives, it was me who came back to decide between 2 competing offers, and why? Because I had nothing better to do? I ran my finger along the carved ridge beneath the heavy wooden table top while I looked again at different closing dates, wondering if I was signing away my reason to ever come back to town.

“You’re running away again.” I could hear teletherapist number 2, Jalene, say. "Why don't you try sitting in the mess?"

I stacked the two folders on the lazy susan in the middle of the table and glanced back at Katie. She hung up on whoever wasn't done babbling on the phone, sat, and put her hand on my arm.

"Hey, new old neighbor" she said.