s03e01 - orange
when i lived with my parents, the night sky was dark. not really dark, not in the middle of suburbia, but it could pretend, at least. my bedroom was right next to the back door, so every now and then i could sneak out to wander the streets late at night, after my parents went to bed.
tonight the sky is orange, and at 2am it's the brightest thing out here. to my eyes it's brighter even than the light filtering down from upstairs. what changed?
it's cloudy, i guess, more than usual for summer. the clouds catch the light from the streets and soak it up like blood in a bandage. and we live next to a main road now, so there's plenty of light to go around. but it got cloudy when i was a kid, too.
when i was a kid i went walking on the streets, where there were streetlights. maybe that's the difference? i can't actually see any lights directly from our backyard, so i naturally adjust to see more of the light from the sky.
maybe it was always this colour, it was just hiding behind the streetlights. i wish i could remember what the night sky looked like from the back of my old house - we had a huge, mostly dead tree that must have made really cool patterns with its empty branches, but i barely know what it looked like any more.
it's not like i can go back and check, of course. that house got knocked down not long after i left. i have to assume the tree is long gone. we used to have so much fun climbing in it.
my parents keep offering me the spare room in their new place - if i just need to get away for a bit, or anything like that. it wouldn't be the same, though. their new backyard is tiny. there are no cool trees there.
i miss that old house. i miss my room, and the wall i painted bright green - probably the last wall i will get to do that to for a long while. i miss having a place that felt like it was actually mine.
i miss feeling like i had a home.