I’m stuck in the past.

Of course I’m existing in the present and going to work, trying to have a life and friends and husband, etc. But it’s always there, this unrelenting and extreme yearning for the past. It spans from watching 80s movies for no other reason than the scenery to digging up old diaries.

Do normal people obsess about the house they grew up in? And I mean “OBSESS.”

Do normal people listen to their favorite songs from when they were 12? Constantly?!!

It’s gotten so bad I’m actually considering buying a bottle of Poison by Dior (the perfume I wore when I was 12.) Just to smell it and have the memories rush over me.

Not helping my sick preoccupation with ‘way back when’ is that the house I grew up in is on the market (for the bargain California price of $836,000 – we sold it for $250,000 in 88’.)

I’ve be staring at the pictures on the MLS like a stalker, but it’s been remodeled and some of the charm has been lost, but I can still see the way it was in my mind, the brick entry way and dark woods, soaring ceilings (gone now, but I see them.) If I had the cash you can bet your ass I’d be buying it. I never really realized how attached I was to it. More than anything it’s the view over the valley full of redwoods and the charming little town, so small there isn’t even a stop light. The incredible sense of space, of peace, of trees (I didn’t realize I even liked those trees.)

I imagine back to sitting in my room with the huge windows watching the mist settle over the valley on a winter afternoon, cuddling up to read “Little Women” on my bunk bed with beige eyelet bedding, hearing my mom upstairs cooking dinner.

But why would I want to live there again?? I love my delivery sushi and three Sephoras within 5 mile radius.

What exactly am I so obsessed with? I keep asking myself and I have no idea what it is. I hated being a kid! When I look at that house the first thing I see is my step-dad…not a good memory.

I know lots of people had fucked up childhoods and in the grand scheme of things it could have been so much worse. Shouldn’t I be over it, I’m nearly 30. What is my problem? Why am I so stuck on it? Why haven’t I let go. Shouldn’t I be worrying about other things.

Ironically, when I was living in that house my best friend Sandy and I would devise childish schemes on how to run away to Los Angeles because we thought it would be so cool to live there. In fact, I wanted to live in New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco (in that order.) Well I’m here. What the fuck is my problem? It’s driving me nuts, but it’s like I’m addicted. Thinking about it, looking at pictures, digging up memories – each hit is more satisfying than the last.

I imagine if my parents still lived there, if we hadn’t moved, if I’d never lost those friends or that great school would I be happier or not. Would I be a mess, like my best friend Luke ended up being. They probably wouldn’t even live in that house anymore. Would I care as much? I’ve lived in many other, bigger and nicer homes since then, shouldn’t I be obsessed with those?

Although I do remember I had another dream when I was a kid, to become a rich successful writer so I could move back there and buy that house. Maybe what is fucking with me is the realization that I haven’t done crap and now that house is available and I can’t buy it. Not to mention it’s completely impractical – my life is here in LA.

I’m inordinately preoccupied with a PLACE - a spot on the map, a spot in time.

I think I’m going nuts. That’s the best explanation.