“You can’t go home again.”  So says Thomas Wolfe in a novel written way before I was ever born. 

I graduated high school in 1993.  Johnson City-a small town in Texas that had 932 in population they day I set off for college.  Graduated college from Angelo State University in 1997 and soon after set out for the world of radio. This year, I accepted a job in San Antonio, just 60 minutes away from the town I grew up in.  I came back home.

I have spent the past 15+ years dreaming of the day I could return to Texas and be surrounded by my family.  I live a blessed life and thank my lucky stars each day that I can be so close to the ones I love.  To be there for them and provide my children with an opportunity to do something I never got a chance to do…grow up around people who share my same last name. 

Have you ever seem John Cusack in the movie Grosse Point Blank?  Great movie by the way!  It’s on the list of films that I could stumble upon and watch at any given point in the movie.  John’s character left town before Senior prom and never looked back. Years later, he found himself back at Grosse Point for his high school reunion.  He had lived a life away from home and became a different person.  Yet, even though he had changed so much, he found himself gravitating to certain people and behaviors from his past. 

This past weekend I went to an event in my home town and was reminded just how much I have been changed by my time away from home.  Not changed in a bad way or altered in a way where I have forgotten about my roots-just changed by the years of different experiences.  I remember who I am and where I came from…I am not better than anyone…just different.  Thomas Wolfe writes about a character who went away to war and returned to his hometown.  In some ways I can relate. 

I looked around the room and saw several familiar faces, but some of the names had escaped my memory.  Physically, we all change.  Gain weight, grey hair, have kids, etc.  Time takes its toll on people.  Some I had kept in distant contact with through Facebook, others I wonder if they would recognize me or even care if I was there.  I hugged a few people and locked eyes with some in that “did you see me-is that you?” kind of exchange. 

You can’t go home again.  Seeing home through traveled eyes.  You change.  They change.  Not to be dramatic, but I have been corrupted by my experiences.  Sure, much of it can be associated with growing up and losing your innocence, but the small town I never really dreamt of traveling too far away from really is a different place.  It hasn’t really changed…my eyes and how I process things has.  

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