Letter

Dear Home,

 

First and foremost, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for taking my teenage angst out on you. I spat on you, I dreamed of long plane rides away from you, I wrote terrible songs and poems and stories about how much you sucked. As soon as I learned I could, I wanted to leave you.

 

But it wasn’t your fault. I realised that when I moved out. I was 16, flat broke, in my junior year of high school. But a funny thing happens in that year of your life- your friends start learning how to drive. Suddenly I wasn’t chained to my antisocial parentals anymore. I got to roam you how I wanted to, and what a world I found.

 

You showed me endless adventure. You took me to hot springs heated by a volcano, to abandoned sugar mills you can ride like a waterslide, to beaches stained green, to cliffs I could plunge off of without fear, to tidepools filled with sea urchins and friendly raccoon butterflyfish, to white sand beaches and resorts you could sneak into if you acted snobby enough and brought a crisp white towel, to waterfalls named after children's books, to a weeknight market where I could dance with carefree hippies until I was sore in the morning, to a lava flow where I could watch you grow as your magma met the ocean and turned to black earth.

 

But now, it’s time for me to grow.

 

I’m sorry. I’m going to miss you. I am going to realise how much I have taken you for granted. I am going to long for your warm days and unpredictable rains. But it is far too easy to get comfortable here. To keep the same company I’ve always kept, to slip into an easy-going routine. No matter how far you go, the mountain is on one side and the sea is on the other. You are an untamable and unmatchable 4000 square miles of raw beauty, but too often I feel I’ve explored every inch of you.

 

People still ask me, “Why would you ever want to leave?” and instead of telling them that everyone born here desperately wants to flee, that I am infected with get-off-this-rock syndrome, that I’ve wrestled with this restlessness my whole life, I am going to tell them the simple truth: It’s time for me to go.

 

It’s time for me to grow.

 

With much love,

the girl who will never return.

 

This poem is about: 
Me
My community

Comments

ashleyrobinson.hawaii@gmail.com

thank you for this it resonates 

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If You Need Support

If you ever need help or support, we trust CrisisTextline.org for people dealing with depression. Text HOME to 741741