home town
my complicated relationship with "home"
I was lurking on my personal Instagram account the other day, as one does, and ended up scrolling through the stories of people I’d forgotten I went to high school with. (I graduated less than five years ago, but in my defense, I don’t open my personal account all that often.)
There were a number of people I encountered—people I never interacted with, people who I sat next to in class, people I did clubs and sports with, people I talked to daily, and everyone in between. As I was doing this late night nosy scroll, though, I was hit with an overwhelming thought:
I miss home.
And then another, slightly quieter thought:
What does that even mean?
My family moved away from the town I went to grade school in after I graduated. I don’t live there anymore. What makes a home? Where can I call home?
“home b”
I spent almost fifteen years of my life in “home b.” (‘b’ because there was technically another home before this, but I was around four years old when we moved, so I don’t count the first). It’s where I went to elementary, middle, and high school. Somehow, in that span of time, I also attended five different schools.
It’s the town that’s most familiar to me, but I’m a bit sad that the familiarity is starting to fade now that I no longer live there. In my head, I can remember how I’d get from our old townhouse to the mall, or from my high school to the library. But I’m starting to forget the street names, the house my former piano teacher lived in, what floor I used to take my math classes on.
I spent a lot of my formative years in home b, hence why I think I have so much nostalgia attached to it. But there were also bad memories attached to it. It wasn’t a perfect town.
There were mean people, prejudiced people, and people who I thought were my friends but really weren’t. Certain experiences I never want to have to relive (not in a dramatic or super serious way, but they hurt). School was rough sometimes. And there are definitely people that I’d prefer not to run into every week at the mall or the grocery store. In a lot of ways, sometimes I didn’t really feel like I fit in in home b.
All that said, when people ask “what’s your hometown?”, I usually say home b. It’s a place that a lot of people leave and never come back to, or return to live there their whole lives. It’s why many of my teachers went to the same high school they now teach at, work alongside people who taught them thirty years ago, and have children that go to the same school district. (I used to joke that it felt somewhat incestuous because a lot of people were related to each other in one way or another, and I’d find out random connections between people everyday.)
Looking at my own peers in my graduating class, a lot of the people who still live there still have their high school friend groups, are still dating people they’ve been seeing since 10th grade, or are frequenting all the spots I used to go when I was younger.
Part of me is glad that I left. The world outside home b is so much more diverse, with more opportunities, things to see, people to meet. But part of me also misses the familiarity. Sometimes I do want to walk five minutes to a friend’s house or go to the same boring old mall we frequented because there was nowhere else to hang out. Sometimes I see the selfies and the photodumps and the recaps, and I wonder if there would’ve been a place for me in those pictures.
Maybe yes—it’d be easier to maintain connections after high school if I was still living there. But at the same time… maybe not. And maybe that would be lonelier.
“home c”
We moved to “home c” right before I started college, and since then it’s like I’ve been a part-time resident. I spend 6 months a year at school. The rest of the time, I spend in home c—and half of that is several months of full-time, 9-5 internships. When I’m not working, I’m probably at home, doing nothing exceedingly important: reading, sleeping, drawing, writing, accompanying my parents to the store, or whatever else.
I don’t have much attachment to home c at all, to be honest. It just feels like a place that I live. I have no friends that I grew up or attended school with to anchor me, no real connections or obligations. When people ask me where I’m from, home c often slips out for simplicity’s sake, but it doesn’t feel fully true.
My life in home c is centered around monotony and empty routines. Because I’m really only there when I’m not actively in school or work, my time at home feels dull. I sleep in, watch TV, eat meals, go to bed late, and repeat. It’s not walkable, and I don’t have people to interact with other than my family. (I love them, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the same as having people to hang out with around my age.)
That said, home c isn’t a bad place to live. I live super close to the library, which I adore, and there’s a lot of nice places in the area. I don’t think I’ve met anyone super unfriendly, and the neighbors are nice enough, though we don’t interact much.
On paper, it’s great—maybe even better than home b. But there’s still an aching feeling in the depths of my chest when I think about it. It feels like there’s still some missing pieces. I’m unrooted there, with nothing really to latch on to.
“home d”
Can I even call my college city a home?
I have a love-hate relationship with “home d.” I’ve had awful experiences here, which isn’t by merit of the location itself, but the people in it. I’ve also had some of the most fun times of my life. It’s one of the most up-and-down of my “homes.”
In my earlier years of college, I used to cry at the airport before returning to campus because I was dreading it so much—the work, the classes, the exhaustion, the loneliness, the isolation. There were times where I never wanted to come back, especially after long breaks.
By now, as a senior, much of the dread has faded. I appreciate home d, though it has its flaws and negative + positive memories attached. I’ve learned a lot about myself as a person in home d. What I can and can’t handle, who I gravitate towards and want to be friends with, where my boundaries lie, how I am as a student and a leader, what my best and worst work habits are. I’ve met close friends, and not-so-close friends. I can’t discount all of that.
Irrespective of the interpersonal aspect, I genuinely enjoy living in home d. It’s diverse, and not too busy to be overwhelming but not overly quiet at the same time. The public transportation is really convenient (though annoying at times, I recognize its merits), it feels safe, and there’s lot's of amazing restaurants and things to do in the downtown area. The weather does suck during late fall, winter, and early spring (a major challenge for my productivity and overall mood), but it’s truly gorgeous when the sun’s out and people emerge from their hobbit holes.
circling back
I mentioned earlier that I felt like I was missing home, but I don’t know that I was missing home b specifically. I think what I miss more than anything is familiarity.
Staying in one place for more than a decade is familiar. Living with the same people you spent almost a decade in school with is familiar. Going to the same stores, restaurants, houses, schools, and so on, daily, is familiar. I know it’s familiarity because when I lived in home b, I was frequently bored and yearned for newness + excitement. I didn’t mesh with all the people. In fact, sometimes I couldn’t be more excited to leave and get away from it all.
But you know what they say—you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, right? Since home b, I’ve moved twice: constantly flip-flopping between homes c and d a few months at a time, stillness at home contrasting with perpetual movement at school, and lingering isolation in both. Post-grad, my plans are still unclear, but I have a feeling that change will be part of it (lol). There’ll probably be a home e, perhaps not immediately but in a few years, marking yet another adjustment to make—more unsteady terrain.
It certainly easy to say “home is where the heart is,” but what happens when your heart can’t decide what place to stay? My heart is with my family, but even some of them feel unmoored by the shift. It’s been almost four years in home c, and we’re still adjusting to things.
Life is inevitably full of change. My parents came from another country an ocean away to get here; I can’t fathom what that must have been like. The fact that I even have the opportunity to feel such instability from moving only a 5- and 10-hour-drive away is a privilege in and of itself. It’s honestly a great problem to have, to try and choose a home out of many options.
I wish I could say that this reflection has led me to a clear winner or conclusion, but I don’t have one. I’ve felt slightly out of place in all of the places I’ve lived, and I don’t know if that outweighs all the good things that have happened there. I hesitate to claim one, somehow having the mindset that I’ll overly romanticize whichever choice I make.
Maybe I’ll claim all of them. Say I was born in a and was raised in b, only to move to c and live part-time in d (I say an abridged version of this at times, makes a funny story haha). Maybe it doesn’t matter. Or maybe home is wherever I am, and whatever I make of it.
Song of the day: “105” by Alex Isley, Jack Dine
this is so beautiful and resonating. missing home not because it is a place, but a feeling of familiarity, is definitely something i have experienced.
This has left me with all the feels of my own versions of home!! 🥹💖