I shouldn't have waited four days to write this

It's always strange.  It's so familiar, but at the same time, so distant.  It isn't part of me anymore.  It isn't in my veins, it doesn't throb like a headache in my brain.  It can still make my heart race, but...not at all in the same way.  And it's going to take a while to fully wear off, if it ever does.  Going back there is like dissecting my own body, my own mind.  The stories of my life are carved on every corner.  Memories are littered like autumn leaves around every turn.

I wish I remembered exactly what he said, but the paraphrase is this: 

"Very few people have come through here who I thought could really change academia.  But I think you're one of the ones who could."

If that isn't putting tremendous pressure on me, I don't know what could.  Even after a year and a half, when I think of the word "mentor," he's the person who comes to mind, not the individuals I work with now.  I always think carefully about his advice, because there's just something about him, about the way he seems to understand me.  

I never really thought about our similarity before, but I think he had it right when he said I'm going to have a hard time settling down.  It's like that movie we watched last year, where the woman couldn't be tamed, not even by the man she loved.  And in the end, he killed her because he couldn't trap her in a marriage.  I feel like that woman, sometimes.  As though even the career I love is going to feel like it's trapping me.  I've always felt a restlessness when approaching the end of anything, about a year before I was supposed to be moving on, I found that I was ready to.  

I always hoped that I'd grow out of it.  That once I found my place, I would relax and calm down and be satisfied with where I was.  But maybe I won't.  Maybe I'm like him in this way.  Maybe I'll need a change at least every five years.  "It's a good place for wanderers," he said.  I can't get that out of my head.  Because I'm reasonably sure he meant it from his perspective, considering a position I may be in after another decade or so, but something about it just really struck me.  Maybe there's more to it, but I haven't figured it out yet.

And as I sat there four hours later, letting the place soak in, the memories from so long ago mingled with the things he'd said that day, and I couldn't move.  The blue carpet, the strange ceiling, the couches I spent the better part of three years on, the deathly quiet and the stale air that I knew could so easily invade the soul.  I lay there for half an hour, opening myself to the waves of nostalgia, the good and the bad, allowing them to crash against me, to smother me in memories.  And when I couldn't take it anymore, I stood up and left.  

I don't think I said a proper goodbye, but by then I couldn't.  I was too full of the emotions of the place, of the words, of the people.  So I left.  And I still feel bad.  But I'll be back.  And maybe it'll be easier the next time.  I guess I'll find out.