Home Again

People say you can never go home again.  I used to believe that.  I moved away from both my home and my hometown when I turned 18, and I never looked back.  I came back only for brief visits a few times a year.  It seemed different then--new buildings and stores cropping up here and there, roads widened to include more lanes, landmarks I loved disappeared. This was the place I grew up, but it certainly wasn't home anymore.  Nope, I thought to myself, you can never go home again.

Then I left my "home" to get a divorce.  I left the house I loved and the life I had built. I resigned from a political post that was hard earned and even harder to willingly leave.  I lost a lot.  And do you know where I went?  Home.

 I went HOME.

I moved back to the very place that at 18 I could not wait to flee.  I found the streets were the same streets, even if a few were a bit wider.  The old buildings and stores I knew so well were still there--mixed in with the new and peppered with renovations over time, but mostly still the same.  Some of the landmarks I once loved are gone, but the land they stood upon is the same land.  I know these roads. I know these places.  I know this town.  It is still remarkably the same, and you know what---there is an amazing comfort to be found in that sameness.

The people here, the people I left behind, are still here too.  They're here and those who loved me then still love me now.  That love is the same.  Those friendships are the same.  There are people here with ready smiles and open arms---happy I am back and welcoming me home. 

I found a little sign tucked away in the back corner of a tiny shop in the mountains on a recent trip.  It says, "Sometimes right back where you started from is right where you belong."  I bought it.  It's perched on the window sill above my desk.  I put it there to remind me that right where I am is the very place I need to be.  I put it there as a reminder that no matter who says "You can never go home again,"  you really can. You can always go home.  I know that's true because I did.