And your wise man don't know how it feels

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It's hard to explain how surreal this is. Me, middle aged, after several unwanted, unplanned, sudden changes in my life, in my childhood room; with all the tropes of my adult life - Blender, Warcraft, managing my own time more or less - but in my childhood room. In this city. With my dad in the living room. 

The reason I wanted to write was that I put on Jethro Tull. Jethro was my first 'official' fave band. I inherited love for the Beatles as a child from my dad, moving the record-player's needle back again and again to listen to Eleanor Rigby on repeat, as as eight years old; but come age 14, with meeting the LARP people and finally slotting into a group where I belonged, I was introduced to Tull; the guy I was in love with, five years older than me and as decent as to initiate nothing sexual when I slept over at his, whistled Bouree for me on the phone. I can no longer tell whether I was hooked or did it to impress him, but I've been listening to Jethro Tull for 32 years now, and like them or not, they feel like home. 

And here, in this room; where I listened to their cassettes, bought with pennies I saved for months; where I painted and drew and felt all the confusing things one does as a teen, and knew all and nothing.

Before I ever dreamt I'll have the happiest marriage ever, but only for 11 years. Before I knew there's a magic injection that can neutralize my appetite and give me hope. Before I knew I'll make up a profession for myself and learn it alone and it will be a thing of great fun, and passion. Before I replaced my dreams of green oaks and fairies for jungles and pirate-beaches. I sat here, and...

It's very strange to sit here again, listening to The Minstrel In The Gallery, with my mind going 'I know this combination of location and sound! You're 16! Quick, worry about failing maths!' and I have  to gently tug it to the present and say 'hey, brain, I'm at the age people can suddenly die because they sneeze. I already failed math and it had zero negative impact on the rest of my life. We don't have to feel big things, we can, I don't know, have a banana and think about geometry nodes and then take a nap'. 

Brain is very, very confused.

But it doesn't matter; when I'm here and I hear the first riff of Thick As A Brick, my brain thinks I'm home. And I'm not, I don't like this place, I don't like this situation, I feel many unpleasant things, but home, it turns out, isn't a location. It's my computer, my Discord friends, my Blender... and Jethro Tull. 


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