Being back in Reno is very strange. So little has changed, except maybe this coffee shop I'm writing in, which is new. Same streets, same people. All the same things I loved and hated; I guess it's no surprise.

Walking back into Rose/Glenn was especially weird. Most of the people in creative have left for other agencies, or have been fired or laid off. Except Stan, of course, and Jan and Tamara. My desk is still there, Tamara sits at it now, though all my stickers are still on it and my genmai-cha still rests in a glass jar in the desk's bottom drawer.

So I'll tell you about this formative event that happened to me, oh, I guess it was in my second year of college:

I was having trouble in school, maybe a bit overwhelmed. I don't know what really. I think I've always just been slow to move on, or slow to develop, or maybe just slow. Out on their own for the first time, I guess lots of people explode into a thousand different personalities; find religion, or find themselves. I just got lost.

Lost, I found my way by tracing the crumbs I left behind. Back to high school, to see my old english teacher and mentor, Mr. Shields, the only guy I think who has ever really understood Prufrock. I don't know what I wanted. Maybe an assignment. Someone to tell me what to do, some direction, an answer to what the hell am I doing. I don't know. Purpose.

I snuck into school. I remember, it was at lunch. I could've just walked in, but instead I crept in. I felt like an intruder, out of place, though only a year or so ago I had spent seven hours a day in the same orange-tiled halls.

I found Mr. Shields sitting alone in the beige-walled classroom, in front of the same seven rows of thin pressboard and plastic desks I had sat in. He greeted me warmly, said he was glad to see me, and then told me something that changed my life.

"You don't belong here anymore, Justin," he said.

So, yeah, I guess that's a bit corny, but it's true. And now my corny history feels like it's repeating itself. Here I am again, on my own. Walking down the only road I've ever known...

I feel lost. I keep going back to the same places in hopes I'll find the way, recognize something. Be told something. But maybe I don't belong here anymore.