My hometown doesn’t really feel like home. It’s supposed to, but it doesn’t. Pretty much the only tie I have left to that town is the fact that my mama still lives there.
Maybe it’s because we lived in so many places before settling there and then lived in three places once we’d decided to put down some roots.
I don’t know.
There’s something about where we live now, Dan and I, that feels unsettled, too. It feels like it’s not ours.
It doesn’t feel like home.
Our house feels like home, but this city not so much. At least not always.
Today we took a trip to our college town to visit with some of Dan’s old coworkers and friends. I felt my heart growing happier on the drive over as we saw the familiar sights of the highway that leads into town. Turning onto the familiar road headed toward campus excited me. I felt something like butterflies.
We all took a tour of some of the new sights on campus and caught glimpses of some of the old because it had been years since some of us had been there.
My heart smiled the whole time.
There’s something about that town and that campus that revives my soul.
It’s the place where I met Dan and our life together blossomed.
It’s the place where I learned what I’m made of. Where I learned how to survive.
It’s the place where I confronted depression and anxiety head-on for the first time.
It’s the place where I found me.
Of all the places I’ve ever lived, that’s the place that feels like home.
John
Sunday 20th of May 2012
Ooh, I like hearing that you have a place that makes your heart happy.
My hometown, that I never moved around in, doesn't feel like home, despite the fact that my father still lives in the house that I was raised in . . . just, simply, there's something "artificial feeling" about being there. I'm not 100% certain that the town I'm in is "home," but the house, most certainly, is . . . and as the kids get older, the surroundings do feel a bit more home-like.
It sounds like you need to find a way to make your surroundings closer to your heart-happy place, somehow . . . whether that means more visiting or an actual move, or to fall in love with where you are now. Here's hoping it's done quickly.
katery
Sunday 20th of May 2012
i completely understand where you are coming from. we live in michigan in my "hometown", but it doesn't feel like home at all to me, it feels like a place that i don't belong. my TRUE hometown is the town i moved to in montana when i was 15. i love it there, i love everything about it, i love all my friends, and my mom, sisters and uncle live there. i miss it every single day and wish i was there SO bad, i hate this town.
The Many Thoughts of a Reader
Sunday 20th of May 2012
Weirdly, I feel most like home when I'm in my college town too.
Tara
Saturday 19th of May 2012
I completely understand. I hated my hometown. As soon as I graduated high school I left and never looked back. As soon as my brother graduated, my mom left too. I count Houston as my "home" but the place I feel most at home and where my heart smiles and I can be most myself? Same as you, the town where my husband and I went to college. Oddly enough, my mother's family has lived in that area for hundreds of years and we've been visiting the area for years prior to my going to school there so it makes total sense for me to feel at home there.
Lauren
Saturday 19th of May 2012
AMEN. Love that place.