You Can't Go Home Again

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/@thgusstavo

I remember this from college: After the first semester of the first year, I went home for the first time. And realized it wasn't home.

People leave their parental homes in different ways. College was mine. A job in another town may be someone else's. Yet the moment comes for everyone: The shock of finding that, even if your parents kept your room the same, you don't live there anymore. It's not your home.

Your parents may make your favorite breakfast every day and your favorite foods at dinner. They may invite people over to spend time with you. They may plan special activities for your visit. The key word: Visit. These are things they do for guests.

Prior to this moment, you may not have considered your new digs "home." Yet you find your childhood digs aren't home anymore, either.

In an emotional sense, you're homeless. Suddenly.

This dawning realization—that you are now a guest in your childhood home, that you do not live there any longer, never will again, and can never, ever go back to the life you had before you left—struck me with a deep, resounding melancholy.

Childhood chafes even kids with idyllic childhoods. All kids want freedom, autonomy, and respect—qualities only available to people who have achieved a certain level of responsibility and integrity. Kids just haven't attained them yet.

Though as much as every kid wishes to be an adult, every adult occasionally wishes for the comforts of childhood. And the first moment when you realize that they are gone forever is stark, indeed.