I was a senior in high school when an underground gas leak led to a massive explosion in my neighborhood. The houses that weren’t immediately destroyed caught fire, and it was a while before they could put all the fire out. Everything for blocks was destroyed.

The houses were rebuilt, and I moved back into my family's house... alone.

I realized I didn’t want this. It wasn’t my house, my neighborhood, or my neighbors. They were all a bunch of imitations. The unique houses on my street had been replaced with a bunch of cookie-cutter copies sized like the originals, but not really like them otherwise. I was living in an imitation of the house I grew up in, without any of what made it special. I was alone, next to nobody I knew. The neighbors were strangers who bought the other rebuilt houses from the heirs of my former neighbors. It felt completely artificial, and I wanted to get away.