You Can't Go Home, Again

There's a somewhat bleak and altogether woeful saying that one "can't go home, again."  This adage is interpreted to mean that, once you grow up, going home to revisit your youth will not be as nostalgic as you might wish; that when you go home, everything will have changed so dramatically, that many of your childhood memories will have to remain simply that - remembrances.

For those of us, however, whose lives have been lived in several places, going home, again, isn't really an issue.  I, for example, am so used to moving every few years that radical change doesn't really bother me.

But, honestly, why should precipitous change bother us?  Who should growing up and seeing things through new eyes - through the lenses of our experiences - cause us so much grief?

Nostalgia is our way of glossing over the horrible parts of our lives.  We love to remember the good things about our past, and that's fantastic; but what we often omit are the awful times.  There has to be some sort of healthy balance struck in order for us to fully understand the lessons we've gleaned from our trials.

When I went back to Buffalo High School, where my father is still teaching music after nearly thirty years, it struck me as amazing that I never realized how actually small the band room was.  Growing up, it always seemed large enough to teach a guard class how to do drop spins and tosses; the back room storage area was always gigantic and cluttered, filled with interesting artifacts of days gone by - strobe lights, old flags, those fantastic 70s & 80s band portraits with each individual in their uniform with their equipment in their own little oval shot; these are the memories I have of that band room, and even though in 2010, it looked so small, dilapidated, and antiquated, those memories remain in that room, cordoned off in my mind with vulcanized rope.

In just under two weeks, I am leaving the Los Angeles area behind, and in doing so, I will leave behind a similar set of memories.  The same can be said of those left behind in Ft. Lauderdale, Atlanta, Knoxville, Kingsport, and every other city in which I've all too briefly resided.  Those who have lived out most of their lives in only one or two places have the distinct disadvantage of being ill-prepared for dramatic changes, though gradual change in their hometowns goes largely unnoticed.  For them, it is all part of the maturation process to which they don't pay attention because they are witness to it.

For me, though, even the smallest changes are apparent.  Roads get paved; schools get remodeled and expanded; stadiums get Astrograss (which is the worst thing on EARTH, if you ever have to march on it); shopping centers get built; whole part of the city are razed and rebuilt as high rise apartment buildings.  Every former home, to me, is unrecognizable from the time I spent, there.

And that's fine by me.

In moving back to Morgantown (or Morganhole, as we so lovingly refer to it), I don't go with the expectation that I will be reliving the early days of my childhood at my grandparents' houses, or re-drinking myself into the oblivion that was my first attempt at college.  Instead, I know that going back, this time, opens up a new world of possibility for me; that I will be in a position to take my expertise and actually do some good in an area of the country that could use my knowledge.

And, if it doesn't all pan out, that way?  There's always Boston.