wales: the homeland expansion
I'm staying in my hometown in North Wales, alone, for two weeks -- the town I lived in from ages 3 - 18 and specifically the house I lived in around about 13 - 18. It's a simple cat-sitting exercise, and over a winter of deep confusion, contemplation, overwhelm and mental struggle, it has actually been a comfortable, quiet and desperately needed place and time for reflection. If I wasn't by myself it certainly wouldn't have been that; in fact I probably wouldn't have even considered it since family stressors usually get too much after a short few days.
The feelings it conjures are quite strange, though. When I would visit this place in my 20s, I felt a lot of nostalgia. For good times, bad times, and just the every day. I also felt a great deal of anxiety: I really, really did not want to bump into anybody I knew from school, nor their parents and get forced into smalltalk. Then, I felt like I got it out of my system. The streets and roads that were my childhood haunts just became streets and roads again.
But now that I explore this place - now far more bereft of the people from my childhood, as a person unrecognisable from who I was then - some things have surprised me, like how much more of this town I've now seen, how much of the Map that I've Revealed just going for some fairly brisk walks. Hours upon hours spent cycling, walking and running and not seeing half this town. Now I feel like I've pretty much uncovered the whole town in a week and a half, discovering new locales and unlocking satisfying new shortcuts.
It's also been a pleasant surprise how many hyper specific memories have come to mind, going down certain streets for the first time in forever. Seeing a certain house, verge or evergreen hedgerow and having a specific day come back to mind. It's not something I'm longing to go back to, not by a long shot, but it's nice to have this arms-length feeling of nostalgia that isn't full of negative baggage.
I'm also grateful that this town hasn't visibly fallen into decline, like many towns in the UK have. It seems to be well maintained, infrastructure is not rotting away and the basic services need to be here. Perhaps this is a reflection of its independent nature. As a historical market town, it shuts the high street to cars twice a week and fills it with market stalls. The shops along the high street and surrounding area are (not entirely anymore, but largely) independent businesses, too. Many that have thankfully survived from childhood. Perhaps if my town had suffered from the general effects of Shit Britain, my memories would have been far more bittersweet.
