by Vickie Britton

Created on: April 20, 2009

Author Thomas Wolfe was right-you can't go home again.

At one time or another, everyone dreams of going home. It is natural and human to sometimes long for a simpler time, and for the innocent, carefree joys of childhood and freedom from responsibility.

Many people return to their hometown only to be disappointed. The old place doesn't look the way it did and it's just not like they remembered it. Things just don't stay the same. Many of the people that they loved and associated with during the time when they lived there may have moved away or passed on.

Thomas Wolfe addressed this theme in his novel "Look Homeward, Angel". His portrayal of his hometown with all of its flaws and quirky characters was too close to the truth and the townspeople didn't appreciate it. He was so hurt by their reaction to his book that he didn't go back for seven years. He felt alinenated and separated from his past. He used the title "You can't go Home Again" for one of his other autobiographies, and since then the phrase has become sort of a cliche for people who become too nostalgic for the past and their own "glory days."

There are two reasons why you "can't go home again". The first is people are constantly changing. Moving away and having new experiences will shape you until you are not the same person you were when you left home. You aren't the same person you were in grade school or in high school. The things that made you happy then may not be what you need today. So the first rude awakening people who seek to go home again find is that they, themselves, have changed.

The second reason you can't go home again is that in the meantime what you perceived of as home will also have changed. Even people who remain in the same community cannot "go home again" because no one can turn back time. Even if you physically go back to the place where you grew up, the atmosphere will be totally different as new faces and businesses appear and disappear, reshaping the environment.

Is the fact that you can't go home again a bad thing? Not necessarily. I recently returned to my home state to live after a long absence. At first I was fairly bewildered because I had long dreamed of returning and thought it would give me the sense of peace I had been seeking. My hometown bears little resemblance to the one that lives in my memory. Many of the houses, streets, and stores I remember have either changed or disappeared. But even more unsettling is the fact that my family and friends have changed, too. My parents have passed away, people have moved, new children have been born.

I look at this as a time not to look back, but to form new memories. Life is a learning, growing process. People must look forward to tomorrow, not backward toward yesterday. The only way you can truly go home is in memory. Memories of home and those valuable influences of people who shaped our lives make us what we have become today.

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