The Places We Leave Behind: A Journey Through Life's Eras

I've been to a lot of places. I've experienced a lot of stages of life. All with different people in different places. I think back on my life in eras. The Crested Butte era. The LHS era. The UNCW- pre Spain era. The Spanish study abroad era. The Chinese study abroad era. The rest of college era. The covid era. The year in Spain era. The return to Wilmington era. The digital nomad era. The trying to figure it out era. You might as well call me Taylor swift because I've got a lot of eras. Eras help me keep track of my life. They help me remember what happened when. Where I was at certain times. People I met at certain points. Memories I made throughout my life.

But they’re also more than that. Eras are emotional reminders. Each era has its own feelings, emotions, joys, struggles, heartbreaks. The eras are powerful and reliving something from an era has the power to transport me right back there. Sometimes its songs. Sometimes its photos. Sometimes its reminiscing on memories with a friend. But I think the strongest one is places. When you go back to a place that was a key piece of an era, it has the power to transport you like nothing else.

You’re in this place months, often years, after you left it. Every place you look holds a memory. You want to tell whoever you’re with now everything that's happened here even though they probably don’t care. The place isn’t as important or all consuming to your life as it once as but it still has a hold on your heart.

It’s bittersweet going back to the places in your eras. This place was so important to you for so long. It holds so many memories, good and bad. Those memories contain people that you may or may not be close to anymore. It might look the same, it might be different than when you left it. But the sad truth is that it’s not the same and it never will be the same.

You’ll never get to relive those memories. You’ll never get to have those connections be exactly the same as they once were. Even if you’re in the same place with the same people you once shared it with, it will never be the same.

Going back there makes you sad. Part of you wishes it was the same, that you could go back and relive those times you look back so fondly on. You're even able to look back on the challenges and bad times with gratitude because with the whole picture in your rearview you’re able to see that the good deeply outweighed the bad and everything you worried about then worked out as it was supposed to for the next era to shine.

And while it can be overwhelmingly heartbreaking to realize that things will never be the same, going back to your era can also make you overwhelmingly happy. Looking back makes you appreciate where you are. All the laughs, tears, conversations, random nights, and opportunities worked together beautifully to create a new era that you couldn't have imagined even if you tried. You have to be thankful for the memories made in that era because they made you who you are.

So while you’re sad you’re not able to live those memories or that part of your life anymore, you’re also so thankful that you got to in the first place. You can look back with tears in your eyes and feel joyful that you got to be part of something so special. And you get to have eternal gratitude that it will always be a part of you.