I found myself back in my hometown again this week, back in the house where it all started, spending time with Darlene—my childhood best friend, my code friend, the only person left on this planet who knows the whole damn story and stayed anyway.

Darlene and I were thick as thieves back then, always up to something—exploring creeks, daring each other to climb where we shouldn’t, figuring out who we were going to become long before we had any idea what that actually meant. It’s wild to think we’re grown now, technically speaking. We both have houses, responsibilities, stories layered on top of other stories. Yet when we’re together, it’s like some part of the universe presses pause on time. The rest of the world can shift and crumble, people can vanish and storefronts can be replaced with things we don’t recognize—but Darlene and I? We’re still us. Still laughing like we’re young and didn’t have all the answers.

We took a drive to Oneonta, then Cobleskill, just like we used to. Not because there was anything particularly pressing to do there, but because the road itself held the memories. Every twist and turn had its own inside joke, every diner and gas station held the ghosts of conversations past. It was one of those days where the sunlight hit just right, where my iPhone playlist shuffled songs that hadn’t graced our ears in years, and we didn’t feel old—we just felt alive. We didn’t talk about bills, or jobs, or the pain of time passing.

And as the day folded into night, I found myself slipping between timelines. The past and present bleeding together like watercolors—messy, imperfect, beautiful in their own stubborn way. I climbed back into my old bed, where the walls still had faint outlines of posters long since removed, and I stared at the ceiling. For a moment, I could almost hear the soundtrack of my youth—songs that knew me better than I knew myself.

When I was still visiting New York City, I would often default to my 80s playlists. Echoes of the Cure, Depeche Mode, Blondie, and Pet Shop Boys. It’s moody, restless, dripping in neon. But when I find myself back in Stamford, NY, it’s always the 90s that take the wheel. Alanis. Pearl Jam. The Cranberries. Nirvana. It’s not just music. A secret language that leads me back to a version of myself I thought I’d lost.

And maybe that’s the thing about returning home—not just to the town, but to the people who knew you before the world tried to tell us who we are. It reminds you of who you were before you had to start pretending. Before life demanded masks and scripts and backup plans. Before trauma carved new lines into your skin, and psyche.

Everything changes. People come and go, stores close, roads get repaved, the high school replaces their moveable type sign with a new digital screen out front, and you realize the local deli you used to swear by is now an AirBnB with a name that doesn’t make sense. But some things stay—if you’re lucky. For me, it’s Darlene. And maybe, just maybe, it’s also that part of me that still believes in wonder, still blasts 90s music with the windows down, still remembers the smell of autumn leaves and the sound of sneakers on wet pavement after a rainstorm.

Going home doesn’t fix everything. But it helps you remember what’s worth holding onto. And for me, that’s everything.