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If you could see them everyday / if they could see you everyday / they would see

Perhaps everyone being home made me realize how lonely growing up can be — how the quest for independence feels a little less daunting when home base is right there.

Everyone has thought of their dream houses before. But chances are, that was a long, long time ago. However, I recently had a sudden urge to revisit my childhood dream house.

Believe it or not, our beloved college town has a charming doppelganger just northwest of Denver.

As we each take our moment of transitory reprieve — whether by train, plane, car or subway — here are some songs to offer an empathetic companion.

I dream of being exactly where I am. Waking up to gray skies wrapped in light pink sheets. / I’ve replaced the cool coastal wind for pulsing still air, / Quiet boys in gray hoodies for young men in suits.

The books that have earned their place on my shelf, however, are the ones I share a history with. When I read them, I’m taken back to the places where I once lived, and the person that I was when I lived there.

Chance could have faced anywhere else, the fog rolling out to sea, the waning moon or maybe even just toward nothing at all, I walked right past his organs baking on the asphalt with a vacuum in my chest.

I find myself incredibly grateful now, finally, for things that I always should’ve been grateful for.

Your slang and your streets became familiar, and without even realizing it, I had come to call you home.