by AnalogKid82

Created on: December 08, 2008

In a few weeks I will be going home. Back to my home state. Back to my hometown. It's been awhile now. Over two years since I have seen the streets that defined my childhood and shaped my adolesence. I am a different person now, but at my core, I still remember who I am and where I came from, even though I left under a cloud many years before.

My hometown is a small space, yet its memories run deep. Times have changed, friends have gotten older,but I am sure that my hometown has changed little. There is still the town plaza where I used to ride my bike after baseball games for pizza and ice cream. Bubblegum and comic books for 25 cents at Kal's Gift Shop. The dirt path around the reservoir I used to run on cold, dreary Sundays in November probably still remains, unpaved.

My parent's house is still the same - a time capsule with a roof and walls - its history goes back farther than I can remember. It was here that I was brought home as an infant, made snow forts on the front lawn with my brother. It was here that I came back to after a late night out of partying, that I brought home my first car to, the place I celebrated when I graduated 8th grade, high school and college.

I outgrew my hometown. The simplicity that sheltered for so long was now like a shirt that had become too tight to wear. The many nights I spent looking out my bedroom window at the western sky pondering the possibilities were tugging at me - it was time to move on.

Things have changed since I was last home. My grandparents passed away. The house that was my home away from home has been sold. Time for another family to live there, make new memories. That's what life is - we pass the torch - we make room for those behind us, and move onto better things. Living life in the rearview mirror is not living, but reminiscing. We must have new experiences, make new memories - or else we stop living.

Don't get me wrong - I'll be happy to be home. I will take my wife and daughter there. We'll see old friends and stop in to a few places we used to frequent. I will remember where I was then, and think of where I am now, and realize that I have grown as a person. Eventually I will feel the tug to come back to the new place I've called home - because that's where I have built a life and grown a family, free from the ghosts of my childhood and adolescence. To start over, make new friends, have new experiences and make new memories. To me, that is how you build a life - that's how I live each day.

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