It’s almost three in the morning, Daddy is tired, and tonight’s blog (number 363) is one of the few that I’ve written (or am writing) on not-my-laptop. Hang in there, I’ll explain.

For the most part, today was just a day. I slept in, finished reading a book, took a nap. This evening, however, was something else. First, when I woke up from my nap, I got a letter in the mail that said my health insurance was ending in–uh–three days. Shit, I thought. My appointment with the immunologist is next week! Well, it took a few minutes, but I remembered that a friend (and blog reader) of mine works in health insurance, so I called her. “Oh,” she said, “they probably just need you to update your income information. Let me make some calls. Don’t worry until I tell you to.” Y’all, I can’t tell you what a relief this is, that even though the “problem” isn’t solved yet, I have someone who’s not only experienced with this stuff but is willing to help. (Phew.) Once again I’m reminded–no one is alone.

Also, thanks, friend.

Tonight our improv comedy group, The Razorlaughs, had our monthly performance at a local restaurant. We were short a couple members, but thankfully some talented (hilarious) friends of ours were in the audience and were able to fill in. (The show went great.) Afterwards, I went over to my friends Justin and Ashley’s house to eat Taco Bell, have a few drinks, and–apparently–play the longest card game ever, Phase 10. (I came in second, even though we technically quit before the game was over, since some people have to go to work in the morning.) Anyway, I’m at Justin and Ashley’s now, as I opted to stay here rather than drive home not-drunk-but-not-sober-either.

Good choice, Marcus, good choice.

For those of you that don’t know, Justin has been one of my closest friends for the last eighteen years. As he says, we’ve known each other longer than some people have mortgages. We met on the debate team in high school and moved in together in 2009. Now Ashley is his wife, but back then they were just dating, and after a while Ashley moved in with Justin and me. Well, she actually moved in with Justin, but I came along with the deal. Anyway, for several years all of us lived together here on Reeder Street (where they still live, and I am now), and we were like Three’s Company or whatever. Looking back, it really was magical. Having lived with my parents until I was–uh–twenty-eight, this was truly my first “on my own” home, the first place I thought of as mine, even though it technically wasn’t. (Justin bought the house, and I paid rent.) Still, when I moved in I got to pick the colors for my room and have some shelves installed in both my room and my closet. Plus, I got my own bathroom and half the office, and Justin pretty much let me do whatever I wanted.

Again, for four years, this was my home. This is where I ate my meals, this is where I brought my dates, this is where I meditated, and this is where I taught dance lessons when I wasn’t at the studio. But eventually, things changed (like they do). In 2013, just as Justin and Ashley were preparing to get married, I decided to move out of the Reeder Street house and in with my ex. (If you’re familiar with the blog, you know that relationship didn’t end well, but it did send me to therapy, and that turned out great. Consequently, now I live with my parents and have this blog. Such is the mystery of life.) Anyway, I’ve been back to Justin and Ashley’s a number of times in the last several years, but tonight is my first time back in my old room, my first time sleeping here, since I moved out.

Currently I’m trying to take it all in and not get too emotional. The room itself is still the same–the walls are still brown and orange, the shelves still hang where they did before. As I’m writing I keep looking around the room, picturing my old bookshelves, my old knickknacks, even my old ceiling fan–all things that no longer even belong to me since the estate sale. Like, I couldn’t find them if I wanted to–they only exist in my mind. And yet there I can find them as if it were yesterday. There was a red leather chair sitting where the bed is now. A picture of my sister hung low on the wall, underneath the window. (The nail hole hasn’t been filled in.) I used to cry in this room. I used to laugh in this room.

They say you can’t go home again, and I guess that’s true. Both back in my old room at my parents’ house and back in my old room at Justin and Ashley’s, I feel a twinge of the familiar. These places are comfortable, filled with memories the way the sky is filled with clouds–here one minute and gone the next. And whereas I’m grateful for both my old rooms–for a night, for a year, whatever–I know that I have long since outgrown them. Things are different now. I’m different now. This is what not being able to go home again means–not that you can’t be in the same physical space you grew up in, but that you can’t turn back the clock to a time when things were simpler or less complicated. You can’t exchange your memories for reality. You can’t un-live your life or un-grow yourself.

Three more posts (including this one) away from a full year of blogging, and this is what being in my old room reminds me of–how much I’ve grown. Honestly, my life has been a roller coaster since I moved out of here. Sometimes it’s been a real bitch, actually. But even though I’d like to see some things in my outside world change, I love where I am on the inside, and I see every bit of my past–including this room–as having brought me to where I am now. For this reason, I’m grateful for my past, with all its tears and laughter. But I also know that I wouldn’t choose to go back or relive any of it if I could. The past is the past, for a reason. I’m glad it’s over. Looking back, I remember being so over-the-moon or distraught about countless things. Now I’m like, whatever, just as surely I’ll be “whatever” about my cancelled insurance a month from now. So surely the past (and even the present) is no more serious than a cloud in the sky, here one minute and gone the next. Surely we weren’t meant to cling to any of it. Surely life was meant to be lived right here, right now, and then let go of.