![19961412_10211525028135588_7567207944009975903_n.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQma2agzX4RMnr4mCxMZroMv3L67owY3YBSQE9b5ZXphbV3/19961412_10211525028135588_7567207944009975903_n.jpg) This town is embedded with so many damn memories from the past and with each of those memories, a long ago abandoned identity and with that identity, a mirage of feelings. Feelings I had long ago forgotten in the capacity which I felt them last night. Mostly flavored by hopelessness, despair, not-good-enough-ness. Each random street I drove down surfaced a memory from the nearly 34 years I spent here, and I began to wonder: what’s the point of this whole damn thing? (in the same way I used to wonder, back then) Which makes me curious... did those stories I used to tell even go away when I left four years ago? or did I just bury them deep in my subconscious as I attempted to flee the scene of my melancholy? I already know the answer to this question: Wherever you go, there you are. I suppose now that I’m no longer numbing my feelings with alcohol and men, and now that I’m actually making choices in my life that are the biggest fattest Fuck Yeah’s I’ve chosen to date… all the old stories I buried in the backyard of my mind must be excavated and thrown out for good. Back in the day, I wanted to blame this place for my inner turmoil. Perhaps I still was on some level, because every time I come home to visit I notice a vague underlying fear that I will somehow get ‘stuck’ here. Last night as I was driving to dinner, and all those old memories and self concepts and feelings were surfacing... I found myself hating this place all over again. These days though, I know better than to identify with anything that feels like shit and so I simply observed all that was coming up and out By the end of the night I was having a blast watching a little Rock-a-Billy band play live at an underground coffee shop where I was giddy as I noticed my thoughts manifesting at a rapid pace right before my very eyes and ears, drinking the chai latte my daughter bought me and nibbling on a piece of carrot cake in honor of a recently deceased old lady, who’s birth and life is still celebrated by those who adore her. By the time the night came to a close, as I waited to pick my mom up from her 40th high school reunion - I gazed up at a million midwestern stars, listening to the silence of this city encased in corn, and I thought to myself, “you know, this place isn’t so bad afterall”

Until next time... No Limits. Just Love. ~ Chandra Nicole

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