i left salem for dracut shortly after my re-reading of the bell jar reached the moment where plath contemplates the horror of a summer spent in the suburbs. now that i'm back here, even for just a weekend, i'm struck by how inexplicable it is that i was able to do this for so many years: drifting, no job; no love, at least not any that went anywhere; and directionless. driving across the state a couple of weeks ago to see laura, seeing places i've never seen that are actually only a couple of hours away, my drive today through a town that seems to have changed so much in only months, and the realisation that i haven't spent a night at home since march all coalesce into an inescapable sensation of fullness and maturity-- i finally made it out, in the mental sense. i no longer feel much of a pull towards this place.

it came to me driving by some of the long farm tracts on the way into town that a lot of people i used to know must live elsewhere now, and that such things fade; i knew it before, but now i can appreciate it a bit more, being more or less established as i am at a new non-school address. living 'away from home', that is, on campus, for a couple of years was only a practice run despite what independence i thought i had.

i stared at the keys to the house of my parents for a day or two before i left this morning, keeping them on my nightstand as a reminder of the short trip hometownward i had planned and of how i no longer carried or needed to carry them on my key ring at all times. i feel far more like a visitor, and i am, even though i have a room here.