The Ghosts in My Sidewalks

And why I sometimes wish they wouldn’t.

Some people get flashbacks from songs.
I get them from sidewalks (and songs).
Not because something dramatic happened there, no trauma, no grand cinematic heartbreak. Just tiny scrapes on the record. Still audible. Still real.

There are streets I avoid. Not because of what happened on them, but because of what they remind me of. I drive an extra block to avoid the one near my ex’s place, not because of a shouting match or dramatic ending, but because somewhere along that stretch of asphalt, I stopped feeling safe being myself. I remember that odd sensation of literally driving “back toward the light” when heading home. It wasn’t the place, it was how I felt inside it.

Same thing with the cinema across town. Nothing wrong with the place itself, but I once ran into someone there, someone I hadn’t seen in years, and a few months later we went on a few dates. It fizzled out. But now every time I pass that cinema, I’m reminded of the moment I saw him, and how part of me wishes I hadn’t.

It’s rarely about the people. It’s about the version of myself that existed in that place, in that moment. Sometimes I miss her. Other times I want to unmeet her entirely.

The strange thing is, I never get that feeling at my favourite café. The one I’m sitting in right now, with a hot latte and a slightly tilted notebook. Even if people from my past have been here, this place doesn’t haunt. It holds me. There’s a difference.

But the Starbucks by the highway? That’s another story. I once sat there with someone and laughed too loud and thought, for a second, that maybe we’d keep laughing like that. But now, I associate that drive-thru with the exact moment I realised we weren’t a match. So now it smells like nostalgia with a pinch of regret.

Maybe that’s why I like doing things alone.

If I go somewhere by myself, no one else can become the ghost in that room. No one can ruin the flavour of a place by not being there anymore.

It’s not that I can’t revisit those spaces. It’s just that I sometimes need to give myself a little kick to do it. A small internal reprogramming. And I’m the one who has to write the code.
I try. I do. But some days, my brain is less of a Google map and more of a haunted house tour.

Sometimes I think I’d make a perfect subject for those old Harlow monkey experiments, you know, the ethically questionable ones where baby monkeys had to choose between a wire “mother” with food and a soft one with just warmth?
Apparently, I’d have starved.
Because clearly, I’m someone who picks comfort over logic (certainly when it comes to men).
(Also explains why I occasionally need to wipe my entire Spotify playlist clean. One song, one memory, and suddenly I’m back in a moment I didn’t ask to revisit. So yes, I’m basically double-cursed: haunted by sidewalks and soundtracks.)

Still….I keep walking.
I keep making new memories.
And maybe one day, the old ones will just become part of the wallpaper.

– Sophie Quinn