Home - Change

This is a continuation on my previous entry. Forgive me for how long it's taken to write this up.

By the time I returned Friday night from a lovely evening with my old friends, it was roughly 11:30 PM. Since arriving back in Juniata County from school earlier that evening, I still hadn't been to my house. When I returned home, it was almost like stepping into some odd, distorted world: one that resembled a world you once knew well, but it now stood foggy, misshapen in a way. Things still held their general shape and size, but small details had changed upon my entry.

• There was an inordinate amount of children's shoes lying helter-skelter in a pile by the door, all unorganized and lacking any state of decorum or decency.
• Dirty dishes abounded across the counter by the sink. I could tell who had accrued the most of them too. My 12-year-old brother Christian has this odd penchant for putting a disposable plastic straw in every beverage he drinks. He also has the aggravating idiosyncrasy of never reusing a glass. He merely finishes one drink and goes on and dirties another three or four throughout the day. A fair amount of soiled glasses and plastic cups, all festooned with a colorful plastic drinking straw, held reign amongst the other dishes.
• Baby gates cordoned off each staircase in the house, a safeguard for my infant brother Quinn. He had recently learned to crawl, and at a vivacious speed, too.
• The blue-carpeted stairs which led to the Benner children's bedrooms on the second floor were cluttered and littered with the various belongings of Christian and my 7-year-old sister Addison. The two have a most perturbing aversion to actually taking any of their belongings to their rooms when they are told to do so, so they naturally lay them pell-mell across the bottom-most stairs. Many a toy and trinket have been shattered under my unsuspecting tread due to this practice.
• The floor of the upstairs bathroom was covered with a fair flood of Christian's clothing, tossed without regard to cleanliness or organization.

And most alarming of these:

• The toilet paper roll in the bathroom had been hung backwards.

As I grew from a young adolescent into a young man, I developed a strong sense of organization and cleanliness. I believe that each and every one of us have "obsessive compulsive disorder" - or a mindset resembling it - to one degree or another. Some people have it to absolutely no degree and are thus "slovenly" or "unorganized." Others have it to a highly prominent degree where it may actually be diagnosable as true "OCD." I believe, with tongue slightly in cheek, that I've developed a higher than average degree of OCD. I cannot stand a lack of organization in my house, especially resulting from my siblings. Maybe it's just me finding a subconscious way to pick on and harass them, or maybe it's a parenting instinct already making its debut in the world, but either way, their messes aggravate me to no end. When I was home and in high school, I would generally be the one to clean up after their messes and in our common living areas. However, since I'd gone, no one but my ever-busy mother and my work-taxed father could clean such messes. My poor neat-freak heart broke clean in two.

However, my worst shock was met when I entered my room. I found numerous things out of place, items moved and opened, and objects removed from my room entirely. A floor lamp was gone, as were campaign pins of Kennedy and Obama that had adorned my curtains. My curtains, also, were gone. Needless to say, my fury struck down on unwitting Christian and Addison with the vehemence of (insert some arcane and ominous sounding biblical reference here; Egyptian plagues, fire and brimstone, what have you, et al).

Once I'd finally gotten all settled and returned all my possessions to their rightful place, I settled down into my bed. It was uncomfortable compared to my bed at school. Most of my pillows were up at State, and I only had two now (I strangely enjoy sleeping with A LOT of pillows, like six or seven). Instead of sleeping under my usual comforter, I slept under a spare sleeping bag, all unzipped and spread out. It was not the good old home sleeping experience I once enjoyed. But as I laid there, staring at the ceiling and walls, attempting to repose in my uncomfortable resting spot, thoughts of other changes that I've seen began striking my mind:

• A girl who graduated before me, unable to manage her course-load, dropped out of college.
• Two of my classmates, neither attending college, both became engaged after the girl was kicked out by her parents. An awkward living arrangement was made with the fiancee living with her in-laws-to-be.
• A barn, one I always passed by and held as a common landmark, was torn down and destroyed.
• A strange, awkward, implicit relationship was being held between one friend and another.
• One friend had been sworn into the Air Force and was awaiting assignment.
• A boy I went to elementary school with but moved to a neighboring town in eighth grade was now in a local prison for simple assault.
• Many of the old groups of friends that I was once part of no longer associated or weren't quite the same.
• A favorite teacher from high school retired.

I know that changes happen. Everyone knows that. It's just striking when they happen so quickly, right before your eyes. Some are more sudden, yet more trivial. Others are more gradual, yet more fundamental. This, I suppose, is what time brings.

My sincerest regards,
Brandon