Leaving Rhode Island: You Wouldn't Even Recognize Me

Five years ago, I left

I got the letter
I looked at the letter
Annnnnnnd
I left

No dramatics
No...no nothing, really
I just took off

I went a bunch of places
A lot of music festivals
Listening to bands that broke up
Halfway through their set
In the middle of a barn
In the middle of--
God, I don't even know where I was

Not important though

What's important is...

Five years later
I get another letter
Saying 'Come back'

And I go back, because...

Because there were things that--

I mean, as you can see
I'm a young guy, but--

No matter how young you are
You can have unfinished business

There were, uh...

People who...overlooked me
Who...didn't think too much of me
Who...

The thing about attention is
That everybody wants to--

God, why am I going off on this--

Okay, because--Well--

It makes me mad
Honestly
It makes me
Really mad
That--

You know, we don't think of attention
As something that needs to be reciprocated
But--I'm someone who--paid so much attention
Just--so much of my life
Paying attention
To other people
With nobody
Nobody at all
Even thinking about
Paying some of that attention
Back to me

And...

I come back

I come back knowing that--

Things have changed
I've changed
I...

I want to believe I have anyway
I think...
I think that everybody would want to believe that...

No matter who you were five years ago that...

That you've improved
That you're...better
In some way

You want to come back to...
Where you're from
And have people go--

'Wow, look at you,' you know?

So I came back and...

Nobody recognized me

Uh, which--is not the same thing as--

'Wow, look at you'

There's sort of this...abandoned feeling of...

There is no new you
There's just...this person
Who you've become
That eclipsed the old person
And you didn't even...

You didn't even know it was happening

Crazy, really crazy

So many...

You know, so many crazy things

To return
And find out
It's got nothing to do
With the people you're going back to

It's about
The person you left behind

The person you used to be

Five years

God

Where did that go, you know?

Where did it all
Go?