Since my parents moved hours away from where I spent my childhood and adolescence, I don't come to my hometown that often. When I do, there's a strange sensation of feeling far removed and like I never left at all.
When I drive down what has always been the main hub of town, things couldn't look more unfamiliar. What once was a truck stop is now a Meijer. Where there used to be empty land, they've packed in a Wal-Mart. Stores and restaurants with corporate governance now reside where local businesses or nothing at all used to stand.But when I started winding down the dirt roads, connecting one familiar stomping ground to another, the comfort returns. When I'm noshing on the best donuts known to man, they taste as wonderful as I remember them when I was five years old. There's a well-worn ease in sitting around the living room with three of the people that have known you best, despite the time and distance that makes these occasions rare.
As much as I've never been one to think longingly back to high school days, I walked away from this wedding reception with a far less sour taste for that era than I have been carrying around for ten years. I forget what it's like to be around an entire group of people that know each others' pasts, spending nearly every day in the same general surroundings and events. I suppose I enjoyed waxing nostalgic a little bit.
There's still no chance that I want to move back to the same realm where I grew up. But an occasional reminder of where I came from and the building blocks of my adolescence proved to be welcomed.
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