Returning Home

            

             Coming back to a place that caused you pain is no small feat. There’s no dramatic soundtrack, no cinematic confrontation, just the realization that your body still remembers the ache, even if your mind has tried to move on. The sunlight still glints off the waves the same way, and the wind still smells like salt and sunscreen and childhood. I’m not the same and yet, somehow, I’m forced to meet the version of myself who used to walk these streets.

The memories here belong to a younger me. A version of myself who was more anxious, more uncertain, more tightly wound by the expectations I thought I had to meet. That girl walked around with her shoulders tense, trying to be perfect, trying to be invisible and unforgettable at the same time. She sat quietly in the back corner of the library, rereading her notes until the pages blurred. She paced the walking path with headphones in, using music to drown out the constant hum of self-doubt. So many places here are haunted not by ghosts, but by myself. I see her everywhere. And every time I pass by one of those old landmarks, I feel the collision between who I was and who I’m trying to become. It’s disorienting. It makes you second-guess if change is even possible, when the physical world hasn’t changed much at all.

But it has. The town is growing up too. The restaurant we basically lived at in high school is being torn down. It’s strange—there’s something comforting about the fact that even the landmarks I clung to are disappearing. Like the town is making room for something new, just like I am. Manhattan Beach is getting more popular, more developed, more modern. And maybe, I’m getting there too.

These days, I’m trying to build a new routine. Something that belongs to this version of me who has lived through things and learned from them. The one who doesn’t pretend to have it all figured out but shows up anyway. I’m leaning into discomfort, even though it feels foreign and exhausting. I’m forcing myself to go places that used to make me spiral and reclaim them, step by step. Some mornings I walk the same path I used to dread, and I whisper to myself that I’m allowed to feel both fear and progress at the same time. That growth isn’t loud or obvious. 

Today, I began my journalism internship with a local publication here in Manhattan Beach. I walked into the office with that familiar nervous energy buzzing under my skin, but also with something new: hope. Maybe this is how I start rewriting the narrative. Maybe this is how I stop letting memories define me and start letting my work do the talking. Writing has always been a lifeline for me, a way to observe the world with curiosity, to tell stories that matter. Now, it’s also a way to root myself in this place again, not as a passive observer, but as someone who belongs. 

Will I get to make change with my writing? I don’t know yet. Maybe my words can reach someone who feels stuck in their own hometown shadows. Maybe they’ll read a piece and feel less alone. Maybe they’ll see that healing isn’t a straight line, it’s walking the same streets and feeling something different this time. I’m still learning how to live here again, how to move through the memories without getting lost in them. But I’m trying. And as the town rebuilds itself, so will I. The restaurant is gone, but new places will grow in its place. Just like new versions of me are finding their footing in old places.