I grew up in New York City, and moved to Houston, TX at the age of 26. It was an adjustment, I’ll tell you, and I guess I still don’t feel ‘All In’ after 35 years. On the other hand, I’ve visited home (Brooklyn, NY) several times over those 35 years and the buildings are mostly there, but the people have almost all changed. The familiar stores and eateries are mostly gone. The party room where I had my Bar Mitzvah in 1964 in the back of Grabstein’s Deli on Avenue M off of Rockaway Parkway is now a locked and sketchy-looking storage area for the sketchy-looking Chinese takeout place inhabiting this building which is still haunted by a different era.
Technically speaking, I find that going home again is easily accomplished if you follow a GPS coordinate to a target location, but it will never actually BE home. The people are different, the houses are different, your favorite bakeries, toy stores, hobby shops and hangouts are all different or populated by metaphorical aliens.
No, you really can’t go home again; not after too many years have passed. All you can do is visit a vaguely-familiar-but-strange country, and try to find a different kind of home there; one which you can accept in your heart as being somehow still related to the place you loved.
If you still feel attached to your old haunts after enough years have gone by, I envy you, and wish you continue to find comfort and happiness there. ~ Mike
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This post was inspired by something I read at: It is pretty. ~ A Southern Girl in the Midwest
