Going home

[AdmiralTofu]

With my relationship with my son's mother having been over for a year and a half now, and with her recently telling me that she plans to move with our boy to Atlanta within the next 12 months (a decision which, as much as it pains me, I fully support -- this town we live in is not a healthy environment for either her to live in, or my son to grow up in), I've decided that the time has come for me to go home -- 'home' being mid-coast Maine. I've given a month's notice at my job, and in six weeks, I'll be packing up the old Camry and heading northward.

It's been five years since I moved away, and three years since I've been back for so much as a visit. I miss my family, and miss the place. It'll be great to be back home, but of course, bittersweet, as my relationship with my kid will now be long-distance.

But, I'm starting to digress now. This thread isn't about endings; it's about beginnings -- about going home. Has anybody else here ever returned home after a long absence? What was it like? Was it everything you expected? Did you get emotional when you reached some milestone that truly said 'You're home'? (I fully expect to weep when I cross the Piscataqua River into Maine!) Was it a disappointment? Had things changed so much that you hardly recognized the place? Exciting? Depressing? Anticlimactic?

I'm interested in folks' experiences. This is a major life change for me, and I'm looking for perspective -- good and bad.

-Tofu

 

[Foofoogal]

I wish I could say I had a home to go home to. I have moved so much in my life as a child and adult.
I so envy people who have parked in one spot all their lives. If you are able to do this I wish you the best.
I lived last time for 15 years in one spot and made acquaintances but no real best friends forever as the ones I did make moved off.
Honey did stay in one spot as a child but moved when he graduated and I just know going home for him is almost painful. Parents gone, place has changed in many ways, people and places.
Life changes can be difficult. I had read once many things are dramatic in life. It was a list and I cannot remember but seems it went sort of like this:

Moving
Divorce
Death of Loved Ones

The human spirit is quite sturdy but things definitely do change us. May be TMI but if you are able to see your child quite often and he is in a better place I say you are doing a very smart move. I also say one thing I have definitely learned is we don't know what will happen in our lives 20 minutes from now. So hang on.

 

[AmateisGal]

I'm having major homesickness right now. After just going through a divorce, I am anxious to be around my family and feel their strength and support. They only live 450 miles from me, but still, I can only get back there once every few months. I haven't been home since February and it's been pretty difficult for me.

Ironically, my situation is a bit similar to yours. My ex-husband decided to move back home to be with his family and the only problem is that he will not get to see our daughter near as much as before (as in, every weekend). It's weird because he always said how much he hated that part of the state (we're both from western Nebraska), but I think he just needed to be with his family again. Plus, he has a job there, too.

Even though I love my family, it would take a lot to convince me to live there again. I spent 24 years trying to get to a better place for me emotionally and career-wise. It's a farming community and that part of Nebraska has a much slower pace of life which I crave now and again, but I really need the energy of the city to keep me going. Plus, job opportunities for me would be virtually unheard of there.

But, I always feel more grounded after going home. It helps the world make sense again.

Good luck with your move and I wish you the best!

 

[lindylady]

I have been away from home since moving to DC in 2004 to attend school. You might say that my original home in Ohio was a tad dysfunctional. I had to deal with family members who sought to control every aspect of my life, including attempts to prevent me from having a relationship with my father (my parents divorced when I was a child, and my mother's side of the family has spewed bitterness and hatred towards my dad ever since). Every time I go home, they try to subject me to criticisms about my choices in life, my career, marriage, etc. After each visit, I leave embittered, angry, and hurt by their misconceptions. I have since drastically limited my visits to them. Instead, I try to surround myself with positive people such as my husband, dad, church family, and in-laws. Life works better for me this way. Suffice it to say, there's no place like home, and I'm glad for it.

 

[this one guy]

I have returned geographically to places where I've lived, but they are never the same. It was strange to see someone else's truck parked in what was once my driveway, and lights on in my old house without me in it.
Back in my old home town, my folks are gone now and it felt like an empty shell last time I was there. It sounds like your roots haven't broken, and now 3 1/2 years after your post I hope things worked out better for you.

 

[Shangas]

I'm still living at home because I haven't found a job yet, but my brother had been living in Europe for about 2-3 years.

Last year, he came back for the first time since going away.

The first thing he did when he came home was give me a hug.

Which took me completely off-guard. My brother is NOT the hugging-type. AT ALL. He'll hardly shake hands if he can help it.

The other thing was that he spent fifteen minutes just wandering around the house in a daze, checking out all the changes that had been done. He'd been away for so long, I'd forgotten that there WERE any changes!!

He stayed for about a month, before his job called him back to London.

We're expecting him home again in March, for good this time. Dad says it's better for him to live and work here. Fewer expenses.

 

[Atticus Finch]

A small bit of humor.

The Daily Tarheel is the student-run, campus newspaper at UNC-Chapel Hill. Back in the mid-seventies, the DTH's editorial staff frequently ran humorous articles about campus life and whatever else caught their fancy. One week, they ran a series of articles supposedly written by Thomas Wolfe's ('20) freshman roommate. I'll never forget the first line of that series. It went something like this: "Tom wasn't a bad guy to live with. He was kinda quiet and kept his part of the room clean. But he really didn't go home very much...not even at spring break..."

AF

 

[Tango Yankee]

Sometimes I envy those who have a place they can call home and to go home to. As I've mentioned before, I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, and like people growing up in a small town, went from kindergarten through high school with the same group of kids (with the group expanding when we hit junior high due to the different elementary schools funneling into it.) But once we graduated high school we went our different ways and now my home town is virtually unrecognizable in many ways. Certainly no one I grew up with still lives there (my classmates are scattered across the country as well as across southern California) and so far as I know with the exception of one guy's father our parents have all moved on as well.

Now I'm living in the area where my wife grew up, in what used to be her grandparent's house. Her father still lives in the house her parents bought in the '60s. Her sister has lived and worked here her entire life. Her brother moved away, but never more than a partial day's drive, and is moving back with his wife (also from here) when he retires next month. My wife, of course, went away for 20 years but returned when she retired from the Air Force. She didn't expect to stay after getting her degree, but she did. It still seems odd to me to be in a group of people from the area who may not know each other, but most people seem to know someone in common.

Ah, well. Best of luck to you, and I hope you enjoy your return home!

Cheers,
Tom

 

[LizzieMaine]

I only live 30 miles from the town where I grew up, but I could never live there again -- because the town I grew up in is not the town that's there now. It was a blue-collar industrial/fishing town when I lived there, and now it's a haven for tourists, seekers after the insincerely quaint, and gentrifiers who think mere money gives them the right to "own" the shore. My mother still lives there, in the house I grew up in, in the same neighborhood she grew up in, a few houses up from the house her father was born in, but the neighborhood is practically unrecognizable now --almost all the old guard has either died off or been priced out, and the last of the vacant lots where we used to play is in the process of being cleared off for yet another big, ugly, stupid McMansion.

I can't go home again. I still go down there to visit my mother, and it rips my heart out every time -- because home no longer exists.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Sometimes I envy those who have a place they can call home and to go home to. As I've mentioned before, I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, and like people growing up in a small town, went from kindergarten through high school with the same group of kids (with the group expanding when we hit junior high due to the different elementary schools funneling into it.) But once we graduated high school we went our different ways and now my home town is virtually unrecognizable in many ways. Certainly no one I grew up with still lives there (my classmates are scattered across the country as well as across southern California) and so far as I know with the exception of one guy's father our parents have all moved on as well.

Strange, I live a little ways south of where you grew up and it seems like many of the people I knew in high school not only still live in the general area but in the same city where I live. Because I'm always running into them.

 

[Atticus Finch]

I only live 30 miles from the town where I grew up, but I could never live there again -- because the town I grew up in is not the town that's there now. It was a blue-collar industrial/fishing town when I lived there, and now it's a haven for tourists, seekers after the insincerely quaint, and gentrifiers who think mere money gives them the right to "own" the shore. My mother still lives there, in the house I grew up in, in the same neighborhood she grew up in, a few houses up from the house her father was born in, but the neighborhood is practically unrecognizable now --almost all the old guard has either died off or been priced out, and the last of the vacant lots where we used to play is in the process of being cleared off for yet another big, ugly, stupid McMansion.

I can't go home again. I still go down there to visit my mother, and it rips my heart out every time -- because home no longer exists.

The exact same thing happened to my home town. When I was a kid, everyone who lived in Beaufort either fished, farmed or worked at the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station. Then, sometime in the late seventies, Beaufort became a "destination" for the newly wealthy who began migrating there in droves. It is still a beautiful town. In some ways its better kept and more beautiful than when I lived there. But all the original "Down Easters" are gone...bought out by doctors and lawyers and tycoons from all across the country. And all of Beaufort's original flavor and character is gone too. Now it reminds me of a movie set. It has the look and feel of something that could never really exist...other than in some Junior League fantacy.

I still own my boyhood home in Beaufort. Jackie and I have fixed it up and we sort of use it as our "beach house". She enjoys it, but I'd rather take a beating than spend the night there. I guess I just have too many memories of when Beaufort was a real place.

AF

 

[Tango Yankee]

Strange, I live a little ways south of where you grew up and it seems like many of the people I knew in high school not only still live in the general area but in the same city where I live. Because I'm always running into them.

Well, I'm from one of the original suburbs, South Gate. Some of the businesses that I remember are still there, but most have closed or, like Weatherby's moved out. And, like Los Angeles itself, is starting to look fairly worn out with too many people using the infrastructure with too little money to do more than keep things together. I know that some of the people I grew up with are scattered across southern California, but none live in South Gate.

 

[randooch]

The concept of "home" carries heavy freight. As much as the idea of having such a feeling appeals to my very core, it has thus far failed to form. After coming to the understanding that it might never happen, I have tried to cultivate a sense of feeling at home wherever I am at any given moment.

This path seems right for me.

 

[Tango Yankee]

The concept of "home" carries heavy freight. As much as the idea of having such a feeling appeals to my very core, it has thus far failed to form. After coming to the understanding that it might never happen, I have tried to cultivate a sense of feeling at home wherever I am at any given moment.This path seems right for me.

I have a cross stitch that a friend of mine made for me in '87. I received it as a Christmas present while living in a dorm during a deployment to Panama. It reads "Home is where the Air Force sends you."

 

[ortega76]

My folks still live in the house where I grew up. A few years ago, I moved back following my divorce and an illness. I had visited often but not for any length of time. It was good to reconnect and feel a part of something that has left its mark on me so deeply. I am closer than ever to my folks and even moved to the next suburb over!

 

[TomS]

I was away in the Marine Corps for a long time. When I returned home it didnt feel like it did before I left. I had become a guest... was weird.

 

[DirtyHarry]

seeing off a son & his mother while packing up a Camry to head back, "home" would crush me. Especially to a cold location. May I suggest a warmer climate & fantastic female companionship somewhere else?

 

[DirtyHarry]

the military can expose you (rarely & thankfully) to places more beautiful than your home state & make you grateful to leave. Granted, I still dream of walking my hometown fishing/sailing/summer spots..but thank the heavens I saw the light.

 

[Seraph1227]

I have found that the quote is true. " You cant go home again." My Grandmother's house that my Great Grandfather built in 1910 has been converted to a greenhouse and is only a shell. The sprawling yard that used to be an apple orchard is now covered with a hodgepodge of trailers. I can no longer bear to visit it.

 

[GHT]

Proverb: 'home is where you hang your hat.'

Rather than feeling nostalgic or sentimental, one should simply accept any place where one happens to reside as one's home.
That's my mantra, reason is, for me, people are home:

A father who devoted his life to raising four small children when his wife,
our mother, died aged just 33.

A grandmother whom I would visit during the school's summer recess. She ran a fish & chip shop on England's south coast.
How she spoilt me, how I loved her.

A mother & father-in-law who were more than surrogate parents.

A beautiful wife, who has shared and shouldered many of life's burdens with me.

These people, and many others, are my home.