Changes

Nelson Mandela at one time said, "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." Next week will make two months since I permanently relocated to the Washington D.C. area, a place at one time I called home. However, in the seven years since I moved from here (always making holiday and sometimes summer visits) I felt as if the whole scene had changed. Besides the sprouting up of several new neighborhoods, the demographic change within my own old neighborhood, and the gentrification of D.C. There was something else different...like I had lost a connection to the social scene, and lost my bearings on my personal life.

It is not so much as the fact that I do not really have a lot of friends in this area, but more so, that the friends I once had in this area have their own lives now. I have changed and they have changed, and while both changes may have been for the better it does not do well for my social calendar. I really began to realize how much I had changed when I went out my first weekend in DC. I saw so many friends from high school, and had a lot of fun, but the next day when asked to do it again, I answered with a firm "no." Whether it be age, mobility, or my tolerance for the "spirits" it boils down to change. I don't want to party like I used to. I don't want to drink like I used to. Don't get me wrong I still likes to party, get down and boogie...just not four nights a week. My thing is if I am spending more time out then I do at home, then why the hell would I pay bills. To be quite honest, a night at home on the couch with someone I vibe with, watching some movies sounds like the perfect thing right now. There's the rub: I don't freaking know people like I used to. I need people to vibe with and the only way you meet them is by going out.

As I stated the friends I did have here either moved away, got married, or got knocked up. The rest of my friends who have remained on the party scene, have their own cliques or circle of friends they chill with. Other friends are stuck in a mentality that I abandoned years ago, and to be quite honest I do not feel like pretending I am into things or scenes that I am not into for the simple sake of meeting people. It took reading this Mandela quote to make me realize, the area had not changed nor had the people. I have changed. I guess it's time for the "new" me to find my niche here because it certainly is not where it used to be.