today, i drove through the suburbs.
why i regress when i visit my parents
🎶 drivers license (slowed + reverb) - Olivia Rodrigo
I spent a week in the California suburbs where I grew up, and oh boy. I wish I could say that I had an awesome time, but I honestly didn't. Did I enjoy seeing my dad and my high school friends? Of course. But did I enjoy being in San Ramon, California? Absolutely not. Something strange happens to me whenever I visit the site of my most embarrassing and formative foibles.
the infinite regress of the suburbs.
I've always been one of those people who was particularly sensitive to environment. I studied for the LSAT at the Yale Law Library because I thought it would help me absorb the high LSAT scores of those around me. There's something awe-inducing about being somewhere that I know that others, who may have had similar confusions and ambitions, were.
But when I'm in my childhood home, I have no awe. I only have shame. The shame of getting my period in 5th grade and not knowing what it was. The shame …