Ever wish you could move back “home?”

If you’ve ever moved from one town to another, it is likely you feel nostalgic at times about the place you left behind. Of course, if you disliked that place, you block it out of your mind or think of it more as “thank goodness I do’t live there!” We moved to Arizona when I was three and moved to Middle Tennessee at the end of my sixth grade year. I missed Arizona and my friends a great deal, but I adjusted and built a good life in my new town. My parents moved away from there after I graduated from college, and with the town being 230 miles away, I haven’t gone back very often because there was no reason to do so.

However, (and this is where those of you who have moved around a bit might relate) I had the urge to go back and travel the roads I used to travel, see my old schools (well, school, because two are gone now), see the two houses we lived in, and so forth. My thoughtful husband knew I was having those thoughts and suggested we go visit. Not go visit someone. Just go visit the place.

So off we went on a beautiful fall day. Two hundred thirty miles later (interrupted only by the obligatory stop at Cracker Barrel), we arrived at our destination. First stop was the newspaper where my father was production manager for ten years. The good folks there allowed us to come in and look around. Wow, what a difference 41 years make! The newspaper industry has changed completely. The large back room that once housed a darkroom, layout tables, machines, and a huge printing press is now full of huge rolls of paper and the printing press. My dad’s office space was still there, and it looks as though maybe the same furniture sits in it, but I was a little misty-eyed remembering him in that spot. He passed away in 2012, but his presence in the place he loved to work was still strong. He worked with the architect who designed the building, so the place was his pride and joy.

We spent about two hours or so driving around and walking the once-familiar streets, and when we left, I was appreciative of the opportunity to go there and sad at the same time.

So much had changed. The old stores were gone, replaced by stores selling cheap items or even left empty. The nice neighborhoods of the 19i60s and 1970s are now older, and while still nice, they look…older. My former church has an addition to it as well as an extra building at the back. My high school, now a middle school, boasted a chain link fence to keep out unwelcome visitors. Signs of the times.

In a nutshell, my former home didn’t feel like home anymore. It wasn’t just because of the changes I saw. It’s because the people, or majority of them, that make my memories so special, are no longer there. Most of my close friends from high school have moved elsewhere, and my friends who do remain in the town have moved on with their lives, just as I have done.

I will confess I used to think I’d like to go back there in retirement. Nothing against my current town, but for personal reasons, I have never been as contented as I would have liked to have been living here. The town is wonderful, full of wonderful people, but for personal reasons I would never make public, it is not the town I wanted to live the rest of my life in. You may feel the same about where you live, and what gets you through the present time is the dream of where you can live when you retire.

After our trip, I realized going back to Middle Tennessee is not a good idea. Too much has changed. Plus, it’s too far from my children. Not extremely far, but it’s too far for easy weekend visits like we have now. There is no reason to relocate in an attempt to recapture the feelings of my youth. No doubt the reality of those years was not as smooth as my faded memories, and no doubt living there once again would be completely different than it was then.

One of my mother’s favorite sayings is “Time changes everything and everybody.” Very true. But every now and then, it’s fun to step back in time and have your heartstrings tugged by the memories of the people and experiences that once filled your life, the people and experiences that made you who you are today.

Those of you who have always lived in the same town, or even those of you who moved so frequently you didn’t have time to plant roots anywhere, can’t relate to what I’m talking about. But to those of you who understand because you’ve been there, I hope you have the opportunity someday to do as I did, to travel the old paths and reconnect with the person you once were. The experience itself will be bittersweet, but it will be worth it.

Or at least it was for me.