Death of a Memory

I grew up in a town (too far away to be a suburb) south of Seattle. It was quiet, for the most part, and had the usual town problems. Nothing major, though. It's the kind of memory you would have for any town in America. Well, as much as I hate to say it, but that idealistic vision of my hometown is completely dead. This town is dead to me.

A few months after moving back from Texas, I moved in with my aunt, who lives in the town that I grew up in. It was then that I realized how much has changed. The homeless population had spiked to alarming numbers. The amount of businesses that were closed was significantly higher than I ever remember. And meth. Meth has become an epidemic that has claimed much of the valley. The amount of people high on this evil substance, day or night, is...alarming. Which means that crime is at levels I have never seen before. And one of the biggest crimes that's jumped up: burglary.

This house has been broken into...I don't even know how many times this year. I've honestly lost count. Before this year, not once has it been broken into and now we've had to lock it down as secure as we can because of the amount of burglaries that has happened to us. One of those measures is an alarm system, which we found out tonight, works. Because we had another possible break in. 

Thankfully the police came to check it out. They didn't find anything (thank God) other than a stray cat wandering in the garage. The garage that was secured as Fort Knox (or so we thought) and no way for an animal to get in. But the good news is that nothing is missing and a stray found a warm place to be for a bit.

Well, something is gone. My sense of security is gone. My kinship for this town is gone. My desire to stay here is gone. Even my faith in humanity is gone. 

When I move out of this town, I'm never coming back. Thank you, methed-up criminals for shattering my reality.