Visiting my hometown on a perfect fall day
My mom texted me the other day asking if I could stop by to visit and go through yet more boxes of things before her and my dad head to Florida for the winter. I hadn't seen them or been home in quite some time so I decided to make the trek down today.
I grew up in a town called Mansfield about an hour south of Boston. Getting there generally takes more than an hour because Massachusetts is just traffic at all times of the day now. I'd describe Mansfield as typical American suburbia that you really want to leave when you're a teenager then you go back as an adult and feel weird about being there.
My goal was to leave around lunchtime, drive on my break and finish working at my parents' house. Unfortunately the moment I sat in my car to leave I got an important work email I had been waiting all morning for and had to take care of that. But off I went and I listened to the new AG Cook produced DIIV album on the way and I thought it was decent.
We are in peak autumn leaf season right now and oh my god is it so pretty everywhere. We have trees in Boston but Mansfield has way more and they were perfect shades of yellows oranges and reds. I had to pull over in my parents' neighborhood and take pictures of the trees against a cloudless blue sky. I guess it was the lighting but the pictures did not come out that great on my phone unless I cranked up the saturation.
Made it home eventually, finished my workday and it was time to go through more boxes of stuff. My parents have been downsizing and fixing the house up to get ready to eventually sell it but they really want me to take things that I sadly don't have the room or desire for.
The last time I visited in the summer I had to go through the last few boxes of my things that were still there and when I sorted everything I wanted to take, those boxes still sat untouched in my apartment bedroom for a few weeks before making it to the basement.
Anyway long story short I have two more boxes of things. More useful stuff thankfully like a SAD lamp for the winter, a non-broken laundry basket and some Christmas decorations. I think the house is going to be sold sooner rather than later with how much and how fast my parents have been getting rid of things and updating the house - the rug in my childhood bedroom with the permanently embedded Nickelodeon slime from at least 20 years ago was finally replaced and my mom even texted me and my brother a few weeks ago to ask if we were interested in having some of our deceased dog's ashes. I politely declined.
Dad and I decided to order takeout from the Chinese restaurant I used to work at in high school. Drove down, took more pics of the sky and the insanely red trees near the library and park we used to loiter at in high school. I don't remember appreciating them that much when I lived there. Got the food, recognized the guy behind the counter as the son of the owner that I used to work with but he didn't recognize me. 15 years and a full beard will probably do that. The chicken is still so good.
Back at home, Mom is showing me photos she's been working on digitizing with a new scanner she bought. I still feel a little embarrassed looking at old photos of myself for some reason. I was Spyro the dragon for halloween one year as a kid. In middle school I had really long bowl cut that looked kind of insane. Trying to remember names of people I went to school with that showed up in the pictures. Mom also showed me photos of her and my dad in Ireland and the same farm we visited this spring which were cool. My parents were around the same age I am when they went. I'm kind of dying to know what my dad was like when he was in his early 30s.
The TV is always on in my parents house and it's either on the news or Family Feud. I always ask my parents how they can watch Family Feud every night and not get bored. "They have different questions" is the answer I get. My mom says Steve Harvey helped her get through covid. I can't really argue with that because I played online RPGs for 12 hours a day to get through covid.
It's time to leave but I have one errand I want to do in Mansfield before I go and that's buying an antenna for my tv at Best Buy. It's a quiet Friday night at the strip mall. I probably would have been loitering there if it was a Friday night in 2011. I get the antenna and get the urge to go to Gamestop. Despite having very few video games in the store I walk out with a fairly pristine copy of Halo 2 for $2. Fitting since I had been listening to the soundtrack at work all week.
I texted Nathan on the way home to tell him about my pickups and he said "you entered the morphogenic field surrounding Mansfield and it compelled you to act like it’s 2009 again." If I hit the Wendy's drive thru that really would have clinched it.
Until next time I suppose.