Growing Close to Home
I used to feel ashamed that I stayed.
So many of my old classmates up and left after high school — for greener pastures, for bigger cities, for warmer weather. They left for jobs, for love, or just a longing to start over. To make a name, make a life, somewhere new.
But I never left.
I stayed in the same town. I shop at the same stores. I eat at the same restaurants. I find memories of the old days everywhere I turn. I drive past my old schools often, each one holding a piece of my story. This place is woven into me — I know it by heart.
I used to think that made me a failure — like leaving held the keys to success.
As if you can’t be happy, or fulfilled, or even brave, unless you leave.
But somewhere along the way, I realized what I actually want is a simple life.
And that doesn’t make me boring, or dull, or small.
It makes me someone who knows what — and where — home is.
I followed a linear path, straight out of a textbook: high school, college, grad school. Then marriage, house, babies. And for a while, I thought that timeline made me unoriginal — like maybe I missed out.
But what’s so wrong with settling down? With staying close? With knowing the streets and people and places that built you?
I don’t crave adventure. I don’t need a fresh start. I’m not a world traveler.
And I like my life just fine — right here.
What I crave are roots.
Roots that run deep.
That aren’t ripped up for restlessness or novelty or the thrill of something new.
I don’t need to roam the world to find a place to land.
I’ve already landed — right where I started.
The older I get, the more I understand the value of family.
And mine is here.
I can be at my parents’ house, my brother’s, my aunt’s — all in ten minutes or less. I can knock on either of my best friends’ doors in twenty. These people?
They’re the limbs of the tree we planted. They surround us, protect us, hold us up. They’re not just where we come from — they are where we belong.
And really, what more do we need than that?
I’m not saying we’ll never move. In fact, one of my biggest goals right now is to buy an old farmhouse in the next few years. But it will still be here. In this city. Near this family. Within this life.
Because these are our roots. And they’re deep.
And with roots planted firmly in the ground, we’ll never grow too far from home.
No comments