A reflection on home, memory, and why I stayed
I sometimes dream of moving away — of starting somewhere new, a place where every memory is still waiting to be made. Maybe we’d go to Florida, where my grandma lives and it never snows. Or head down South, to a tiny town where everybody knows your name. I’d finally get my old farmhouse with the wraparound porch, sip sweet tea in the sun, wave to neighbors from a rocking chair.
Or maybe we’d swing the other way — pack light, move to New York City, live in a shoebox apartment, anonymous in a sea of strangers. Downsize everything. Start fresh.
There’s something magnetic about beginning again. Of finding home in a place that was never home before.
But there’s something to be said for staying, too. For planting roots in the same soil that’s always held you.
I know some people feel it in their bones — that need to flee. Their wings itch. The only way to feel at home is to leave the place they started. My best friend was one of them. He left and never came back, not for good anyway. And sometimes, on bad days, that breaks my heart. I think of the high school antics and I laugh — but sometimes, I cry too. Those times are gone. And so is he.
I can’t blame him. I envy people like that. People who pack up their lives and go, who chase the world and find themselves somewhere new. I scroll real estate listings in nearby towns almost every night, wondering what it would be like to live somewhere nicer, somewhere quieter, somewhere safer. Most of my friends have left this part of the city. Why can’t I?
It’s not that I couldn’t go. It’s just that… it wouldn’t be here.
Because here is home. Not just the city — the town within the city. The restaurant up the street (Carmines), the stores I wandered with my mom as a kid, the library I grew up in and now work. I could drive these roads with my eyes closed, predict the traffic lights like clockwork, name every landmark from memory. The cashier at Aldi asks how Caleb’s doing — and when I say he’s home sick at Grandma’s, she smiles and says, “That’s okay. He loves Grandma.”
I wouldn’t have that anywhere else.
Sure, my town has changed. It’s not the nicest. Crime is up. The schools are slipping. But my family is up the street in every direction. And every time I pass that route we used to walk home from school, I see us — laughing, loud, young. I don’t want to forget that.
Maybe someday we’ll go. Maybe we’ll move for a better school district, or finally find that farmhouse at the right time. Maybe I’ll learn new streets, new stores, new names. Maybe I’ll drive twenty minutes to work instead of five. Maybe I’ll feel home in a place that isn’t home yet.
But for now, I stay.
In the place that welcomed me home from the hospital. In the place I brought my son back to, years later. In the place where I’ve lived every version of myself — daughter, sister, mother.
Someday, when I’m older, maybe not even here anymore, I’ll remember this place — this house, this town — where I raised my son and built a life. I’ll remember playing with my cousins in my parents’ yard, arguing with my brother, walking home from school with friends. I’ll laugh, and I’ll probably cry.
And even if it’s no longer technically mine, this place will always be a part of me.
It may not be where I end up, but it will always be where I began.
No comments