“How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back?” -Frodo, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The other day I wrote about how I’m spending this week vacationing in what I’ve always called my favorite place. I mentioned that it didn’t feel like quite the homecoming I had expected it would be, but maybe that feeling would come along eventually.

In case anyone was wondering…it hasn’t.

I’ve revisited some favorite old haunts, enjoyed some favorite old activities, told my husband about some favorite old memories. It’s been good. But it’s not the same.

We had dinner on Monday with my aunt, my father’s sister – a wonderful and important connection to reestablish. I haven’t seen her in six years, not since my wedding. A trauma survivor herself, she understands what I’ve been facing without me having to explain it much, which means more than I can say. At one point when we were talking, I told her, “it’s just hard to trust…well, end of sentence.” She knows. She gets it. It helps.

It’s not the same.

Today, I was reminded that my life is ruled more by irony than anything else; literally on our way to what used to be my brother’s favorite thing to do here when we were kids, I got an email from his care coordinator, wanting to touch base about long-term planning for him and what my desired level of involvement is with that. (Once I determined the contact wasn’t another ill-disguised attempt from my mother, I advised I’d be in touch with her next week to clarify things. It’s a complex conversation to be had.) Once I made a deferment plan for that discussion, we went on our merry way and had fun.

It wasn’t the same.

We went to the tee shirt outlet that had always had the best deals (still does). It wasn’t the same. We drove down the same roads I traversed so many times in my life. It wasn’t the same.

Some things are the same, but many things are not, and what is basically the same hasn’t conjured nostalgia, so much as an almost detached, more neutral level of enjoyment. Almost like experiencing them anew. Except, I’m not. Trying to explain this is frustrating me, because I don’t want it to come across as not being happy here – I absolutely am! It’s been a lovely week so far.

But I feel like Frodo, trying to return to the life he once knew in the Shire, after enduring an arduous journey across Middle Earth that very nearly killed him and utterly changed him. Maybe that’s just it. Maybe where I grew up, that’s the Shire to me, an idyllic and heartwarming place (at least in my mind) that I’ll always love and hold in higher esteem than anywhere else…but where maybe, just maybe, I no longer belong.

The problem with that sort of reckoning, encouraging though it might be, is that for over two thirds of my life, my understanding of my own identity has been intricately tied to this place. I need to carefully pick up the frayed ends of those threads, and restore them to somewhere they can more comfortably live in my mind and body, or else risk unraveling completely.