There’s a concept that we studied in literature in University about never truly being able to go home again after you grow up. We were reading an Alice Munro short story collection but Tom Wolfe famously wrote about the topic.
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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While the article's author seems to mostly complain about changes, I personally experienced the opposite. After years the town had barely changed at all, which felt very strange and worse the people that stuck around, but aged, had become what I perceived as distorted shadows of what I remembered with very little personal growth apparent.
Well, thinking about “you can’t go home again”, it can be because the home you knew no longer exists
Or the you that was no longer exists
There's an expression that no person ever steps into the same river twice: because it's not the same river, and they're not the same person.
In my 40s I went back to my home town, not having lived there since I was 18 (none of my family still lived there). First shop I went into the woman said, "Hi MrsDoyle, how's your mum?" In the bank, the teller clocked my name and said, "Aww, I used to babysit you!" I got a big hit of the claustrophobia that drove me away in the first place.
Here's the Wikipedia article for the (aptly titled) Wolfe book.
You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting, but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.
It might get better later on, once you accept that the world has moved on, your old room is now an office, your parents are becoming old people, and time is passing. At some point you start getting nostalgic about the things that remained the same in a different way - or at least I did. But Wolfe is still right - it's not home any more.
For years, coming back to my hometown made me feel alien, like in a dream where everything was just slightly off. Like somebody came a rearranged my kitchen drawer while I was sleeping. Just wrong.
But now, twenty years later it, it changed. It didn't become home again but a place that I felt a deep connection to. My friends and I are now parents. The places where we were young and stupid are no longer for us. But that's okay.
I can never go back. Nor do I want to. But I understand my friends that stayed or returned. It wasn't such a bad place after all.
Very well written and lots of truth in there, especially the end about seeing it with new eyes. Thanks for sharing!
Hello,
I switched countries a few years back, but I still visit every few months to see my family and friends there. I definitely get what you mean, sometimes it's not even that the place has changed that much, but it's more that you have changed. I don't think there is really any way to deal with this feeling.
Have a good day.
Definitely this too. It kind of feels like the grave of a person who once was here.
Due to visa complications I haven’t been home to see my family since I moved continents five years ago. I had no idea when I left that I would never see my dog or the only home that I had ever known ever again.
I’m extremely concerned that I’m also pining for a place that doesn’t exist any more.
Hoping those visa complications work out so you're able to visit soon. Yeah, I definitely feel stuck between a dream and reality visiting here now. But it's at least nice to see some stuff again.
I grew up poor in the south. I built a pretty okay career, primarily in D.C. Over the last few years, my visits home have had a similar feeling.
For me, it's not just seeing everyone age, but seeing how they've chosen to "settle" in many ways. There's a realization that many family members have developed as much as they ever will. When I was young, it was possible to imagine myself as a "temporarily embarrassed millionaire." One day, I'd be able to come back and just fix it all for everyone, if I were successful enough. Now I increasingly see the absurdity of that thinking. It's a struggle. It's likely to continue to be a struggle. Many have already gone--so much for helping them have things a little easier. It's utterly unfair. And you're more painfully aware of those realities through adult eyes.
Beyond that, a childhood home is a complex thing. I have many positive memories of the place, but I have many really dark memories that also hang over the same place. Those are things I didn't wrestle with until I got older, which partially accounts for the change in feeling.
The bright side for me is that, despite all of this, I have started to see a more full picture of where I grew up. For years, I could only see the bad, but having dealt with that a little better by now, I can begin to appreciate its charms. It has started to lend a mystique to a place I thought could never rise above humdrum, at best.
Also from the south here, living in California these days. And the part about everyone settling is so accurate. As for seeing the positives, I will say that this place went from being a not well known and somewhat poor community to being in the top 10 fastest growing cities after covid. So it's at least nice to see the care given to it from the state improving. And the childhood home memories are definitely something I hadn't thought of either until now. The fact that my memories here are both good AND bad. Thanks for the response, really made me think with this one!
Remind me of some quotes:
And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
Recently, I came back home after 2.5 years of studying and working abroad. Home (family, friends, scene, etc.) didn't change much, but I definitely felt something off that it was hard to describe. I grew out of it, I suppose.
Thomas Wolfe had it right: you can't go home again.
Hey dude, similar experience here.
I grew up a minority, and went to study abroad where my ethnicity is the majority, then stayed for work. People would assume I'm local by my appearance, and as long as I don't have to speak, I'm blending in. I visit home quite often, once in one or two years, but every time, the feeling of being an outsider grows. I haven't been contacting most of my friends for a while, and my personal values have changed. As you said, parents are ageing, streets are different, and the empty lots I used to play in have been built.
Even though I said I feel more welcome in my current residence, being a foreigner means some landlords don't let me rent their apartment, and some banking services aren't open for me. Can't buy properties either.
I feel like an outsider anywhere I go, and I come from a country with stupidly weak passport. Can't have multiple nationalities either.
But I'll visit home often, and spend more time with my family. Time flies and things change too quickly, it'll be good to celebrate what little we have.
I joined the military when I couldn't figure out what to do with my life and I've been back a handful of times
It's rough. At first I didn't like going home because I felt I could have a better time just staying where I was stationed and enjoying my time off. Eventually I came back around and I stopped feeling anxious.
It sucks the first few times because it isn't the same feeling of home.
My current apartment definitely feels more like home now than the actual place I grew up in... it's very weird :(
That's good to hear, because I think that points the way forward.
The unfortunate reality, I think, is that the feeling you have is the product of your upbringing. Some people and some parents create a solid sense of roots that feel very nurturing. It gives the feeling that while the world may change, the protection and familiarity of home will never change.
You didn't get that. Which is not fair. That doesn't mean you can't have that, but it does mean you have to make it yourself in a new home going forward. And it's a very gradual process.
I've been away from the UK for a couple of decades. I don't feel especially at home anywhere any more. The first time I went back the homesickness was far stronger than I expected. The last time I went back, I realized I have a North American vocabulary now and I speak with a different inflection than the locals. I hope I don't have too horrible a mid-Atlantic accent. But it made me feel like I don't fit in there, and I never quite feel like I fit in here. Plus there's the disconcerting way it looks like home but the town and the people have all changed so it feels like I just arrived from the past. I don't get the pop culture references any more, the country is contending with different problems, and the politics is unfamiliar except in broad outline. It is a weird feeling. But in a sense it's good because it clarifies that "home" is something imaginary based on memory, not a physical place, and in reality everything changes. If I had stayed in the same place that might not have become so clear.
I went back to my hometown last summer. I had not been there in decades. My sisters, who live nearby, both could not understand why. I ended up leaving ahead of plans, there was not much to do, and the place is economically defunct, none of my family or friends lives there anymore. I did reconnect with an old friend who lives nearby, which made the whole trip worthwhile. On the flip side, I now live in a pretty, affluent community. My son, 3 years out of college, comes home to visit, and in spite of being nostalgic, and wanting to visit his old haunts, says it's not home anymore. We have done practically nothing to his old room, except he took a lot of the furniture with him. You are not the same you as when you were younger. The place isn't the same either.
My hometown has been amalgamated into the nearby city, and my old neighbourhood is totally unrecognizable. If not for the street names, I would've just driven by without even a glimmer of recognition.
Speaking to other people from around here, I realise my hometown was always kind of shitty. Close to the highway and industry and not really meant for families, but in my memories it's all so bright and beautiful, and full of kids.
Anyway, that's all to say that we add our own rose tint to the past no matter what. It sounds like you grew up in a pretty ok spot, with some real greenspace. Maybe that's some comfort? That you actually have something real and good to feel nostalgic over?
Yep. Grew up around a lot of rural emptiness. luckily there is a reserve not too far away so there will always be some of that feeling, which I'm thankful for. Sorry to hear about your home town situation.
Thanks but it probably made it easier. I just don't think of it as home anymore.
I have more nostalgia for my first couple of places after moving away from home. It kinda just keep rolling forward like that. Now I've got old homes all over the country
I had kind of a similar experience a while ago. My parents moved a couple times after I went to college but kept a lot of the furniture between moves. I visited one xmas and slept in my childhood bed, next to my childhood dresser in a completely different house, on a completely different side of the country. A lot of the same chairs were there in the living room. For a variety of reasons I don't tell my parents much about my private life. Most of the conversations picked up from around when I was a teenager.
It felt like everyone but me wanted me to feel like I was right back at home and nothing was different. We'd pressed rewind for more than a decade and should be able to pick up right where we left off. I wasn't the weird, deeply depressed and anxious person I'd become; I was supposed to still be the awkward, slightly hopeful teenager. And I could not connect in any way. Being surrounded by just enough of the artifacts from my childhood only made it weirder. Things are better now for all of us, but I still have dreams about it. They're not exactly nightmares, but I'm rarely happy when I wake up.
The town and hospital where I was born has a name I cannot pronounce and uses letters I can't currently replicate.
I got lost driving in the town where the school was from which I graduated - and thus first learned to drive - since trashy bungalow sprawl has created new roads and subdivisions that all look alike. Thank fuck for gMaps, but fuck you to the pride that had me navigating by memory.
I'm okay getting lost where I am, now, as the place I'd go back to no longer exists and I'd probably get lost there too.
Absolutely. My wife and I moved to our current city in 2015. We always visited our shared home city at least 1-2 times a year. Due to the pandemic we didn’t go home from 2019-2022. When we finally went to visit again in 2022 it was honestly unsettling.
The current area we live is urban/rapidly growing and has a rather young population. Where we both grew up is relatively stagnant. Being back where we came from felt like living life without color. Everyone just seemed depressed—no one was wearing color. It was just sad. We had picked up on it during previous visits, but the shock going from 2019 to 2022 was wild. We haven’t been back since, so maybe it’s better now?
For our situation I think there’s objective reasons as to why it feels different (I think there are in your situation as well), but I think some of it has to do with getting older. You can never really go back. You will forever see your old home through the eyes of an adult, and not the eyes of a child.
I went back to the town I spent summers in with my grandparents. I use to ride a little 24 inch bike all over town. I went to the beach, fishing etc.
When I got there everything was so much smaller and closer together than I remembered. Someone had bought my grandparents old house and left the original venetian blinds on the front porch which is the only thing that gave me some measure of comfort. There was a giant rooster statue outside the local diner and it wasn't so giant anymore to me. The road I lived on was blocked on one end and I learned it was from street racers that got one end closed permanently. This town was so quiet you could hear a mosquito fart and that day is was busy and loud.
Thomas Wolfe wrote "You can't go home again." I remember going back to my parents house after moving out and I couldn't believe how small everything looked - them included. And when I go back to the wonderful area that I grew up in - which was fairly rural at the time - there was nothing there but fields, streams, and mountain views and now it's all developed into condos and apartments, no wild areas left at all, and lots of highway.
SIGH. The world I once knew is gone. I had a pretty idyllic childhood so i can't complain, at least I had it once. But yeah it's so different to go back and realize nothing is the way it was or the way you thought it was going to be.