The morning drive was foggy and I remembered

The road was closed. I had to detour.

The roads are all different now. Old blacktop has been replaced by new cement and where once there were just quiet crossroads now circles loop traffic you around mindlessly to where you need to be (could you get stuck? maybe you just drive that circle endlessly…). There are buildings where there were once corn fields. And people where there were once trees and sunsets. It never ceases to feel like a stab to the chest. Like the death of a dear, dear friend. Like everything that what once was, everything good, is being paved over. Grey covering the green. Is it actually “progress”? Because it feels like loss.

When I think back, my memories seem more like a recollection of a book I read about someone else’s life rather than my own. The house isn’t ours anymore. My dad no longer on this earth. The roads I took everyday to school, then, are different from the roads I take every day to work, now. When even was the last time I drove in the part of the city that made up my whole world for so much of my life? I am not even friends with anyone from that period anymore. Things change and grow, but this feels different. This feels…..gone. Like a whole part of me just got sucked up into a black hole and just doesn’t exist anymore; like it never existed at all.

And yet? And yet…..

If it was just some character in a book, if it truly was like it never existed at all, then why is there a missing piece?