When I was younger, I always imagined myself somewhere else. I had always roamed around within the vicinity of my hometown wondering when I was going to get out of such a place. But then, as I grew older, I found myself feeling a peculiar amount of admiration for the place that raised me. I was outgrowing something that I really did love, and I wasn’t even sure if I was ready to admit that.
This freakish feeling of loving my hometown– a barren land made up of past lives that I no longer fit into– could only be made sense by the people that encompassed it. I come from a town that is small. Not so small that I feel like I don’t belong, but small in the way that an idea of a good time once encompassed hanging out in a Turkey Hill (a more hillbilly version of a Wawa or a Sheetz) parking lot. My sense of joy for such a place often fluctuated. Could I love it here, but also hate it here at the same time?
These fluctuating senses of joy and sadness followed me on my departures from Temple. I was happy to escape from the endless noise that is Philadelphia and go back to a place void of commotion. A place of stillness. Stillness has never been my thing though… unless I had been deprived of it for an immense amount of time.
The process of returning home after a fall semester of drowning in schoolwork installed almost a false sense of security in me. I felt utterly comfortable to be back home despite all those “past lives” I had lived and wanted to forget. This sense of security was short lived– a lifeline coming to its end. Break was supposed to be a time of nothing. I was prepared for this void of thoughts, an empty head that didn’t need filling. A mound of relaxation to perch upon. This simple plan soon faltered as I could not stop feeling stuck in a spot I was too big for.
While my being was too wide to fit into this inescapable narrowness, the people are what brought me back. I missed my family. I yearned for the ease and comfort of my best friend. I longed for a quaint bookstore on a rainy day filled with other book lovers like myself. I longed for the miles of green landscape that a photo could never quite capture– those moments often experienced with my family. And I longed for the nighttime drives where I could make out the little dipper in a sea of darkness. I often this experienced leaving my best friend’s house.
I love this atmosphere. I love the people (well maybe not everyone). I love a lot of things about my hometown, but I have outgrown it.
In the heat of the moment on a college campus, I find myself getting lost in the distractions. All the things I love about my hometown could easily be found in the place I now call home. This is also how I know I’m in the right place. I just needed to be reminded of all the right choices I’ve made thus far, by returning to a place that just ultimately felt wrong. It’s nice to outgrow something that no longer fits me, and it’s okay to yearn for something that was once familiar to me.
Comfort is a killer though. Outgrowing this comfortability only makes the distractions less blurry. And the right things seem clearer.