Down in My Dreams

You ever go back to a place you're familiar with, like a favorite coffeehouse or your old school, expecting it to be the same and then be crushed by how much it's changed, or completely gone? You walk down the same road you walked years ago, the old building -the one you know- in your mind, peopled by the faces you've grown accustomed to. And then when you finally get there, you find that what you've been looking forward to is not there anymore, replaced by something depressing, like a Starbucks.

I had a dream a few days ago where I take my usual walk home from school and stopping by at what I thought was my neighborhood 7-11, only when I got there it turned out to be some weird bookstore/kedai runcit I don't recognize, with uneven shelves, like that one strange bookstore they used to have in Lot 10. In real life, that 7-11 is still there, and I don't have any fond memories of it. I'm not attached to it in any particular way (my brother probably would, it was practically his second home) but in my dreams, the loss was so great I woke up with a terrible sadness. It was weird.

It's true that you can never go home again, what was once in your childhood will never be the same because either the place itself has been restructured, or your own mind and perspective of things have developed and modified. I'll never get back the Kuantan I remember, I used to know the roads and alleyways of KJ like the back of my hand and now it's all highways and office complexes. When I returned to Ann Arbor a couple of years ago, I thought I was still the same person, but the town felt different because my friends have all left, replaced by little kids (ugh, juvies) I didn't really care for.

It's a bit stupid to expect things to never change, to leave and see new places but still want your home-base to remain as it is. Stupid, but human, I guess.

P/S: Selamat Berpuasa everybody! Maghrib in WA: 6.51pm. Lebih kuranglah..In a couple of years, it'll be Ramadhan in the summer time. Aiyok! Summer hols in Malaysia la like that..