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Has anyone else developed growing feelings of disgust towards the area where they grew up due to changes in the social or physical environment? I live in a neighboring state to the one a grew up in and at this point in time it would be ideal for me if I could completely avoid the state of my birth/childhood. Anyone else feel anything similar?
"The title is reinforced in the denouement of the novel in which Webber realizes: "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."
The phrase “you can’t go home again” has entered American speech to mean that once you have left your country town or provincial backwater city for a sophisticated metropolis you cannot return to the narrow confines of your previous way of life and, more generally, attempts to relive youthful memories will always fail.
I grew up in more than one state, outside of the state I currently live in. I went back to visit the state of my earliest years and it was overbuilt, unrecognizable. I mean to revisit the state I spent most of my young years one day. I'd like to believe I could return and pick up where I left off. My logical brain tells me not to expect too much though.
I grew up in more than one state, outside of the state I currently live in. I went back to visit the state of my earliest years and it was overbuilt, unrecognizable. I mean to revisit the state I spent most of my young years one day. I'd like to believe I could return and pick up where I left off. My logical brain tells me not to expect too much though.
Interesting coincidence 495neighbor, the state you currently live in is the one from my youth that I now consider to be overbuilt and almost unrecognizable.
I grew up in more than one state, outside of the state I currently live in. I went back to visit the state of my earliest years and it was overbuilt, unrecognizable. I mean to revisit the state I spent most of my young years one day. I'd like to believe I could return and pick up where I left off. My logical brain tells me not to expect too much though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AtkinsonDan
Interesting coincidence 495neighbor, the state you currently live in is the one from my youth that I now consider to be overbuilt and almost unrecognizable.
I know I felt bad because I recognize you from the MA forum and already knew which state you were talking about.
I wonder if there is any place sacred and authentic anymore.
I know I felt bad because I recognize you from the MA forum and already knew which state you were talking about.
I wonder if there is any place sacred and authentic anymore.
Yes, the state I am disgusted with is MA. Back in the 1990's someone could drive around almost any of the suburbs outside route 128 and drive for miles without encountering traffic lights and stopped traffic. Now it seems like there are traffic lights every two minutes of driving down the road. I am even encountering rush hour caliber traffic on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. It has reached a point where I do not want to spend any of my free time in Massachusetts. Once upon a time there were numerous, randomly located, undeveloped, natural spots throughout the suburbs. Most of those are gone now, all that is left is the government owned conservation land. Henry David Thoreau would be appalled by what eastern Massachusetts looks like today.
Now I drive to work, spend my day in the office and then assertively drive home to get back into New Hampshire. I had a couple of women at work show dating interest but I am so fed up with Massachusetts that I was reluctant to ask them out. I don't want to get into social obligations that will drag me into Massachusetts even further. Part of me wants to give up on New England and go someplace where life seems easier but the other part of me does not want to give up my house and local lifestyle in New Hampshire. I am not sure what to do. I am at a critical juncture with the house which I bought as a foreclosure. I need to decide very soon whether I want to go all in on renovations and make the house modern and green so that I can live there with lower utility costs for the long haul or just do a cosmetic makeover to sell it. I love New Hampshire but I have grown to hate Massachusetts and I don't know whether I should stay or go.
I returned to the town where I grew up to raise my daughter. I worked in the city (NYC) and was divorced and my mother was still in town, so it made sense to be there where my daughter could go to family after school while I was an hour and 20-minute commute away. The schools were good there, also.
It became apparent once I was living there how much time had changed the place where I grew up. It had been a small, blue-collar town where many people were related to one another and everyone knew one another. There were normal-sized houses with natural lawns that people cut themselves, and there were wooded areas and creeks and ponds where we caught bullfrogs and turtles.
Well, the town had changed drastically. In the 15 years or so since I'd lived there, people who realized they couldn't afford the ritzy town next door had bought property, rebuilt the houses to twice their original size, installed fake lawns, loaded them with pesticides and had landscapers to cut their grass now, and they were very materialistic as far as having to have designer-brand clothing, fancy cars, etc. The woods were all mowed down to built new houses, the swamp was filled in and turned into a cul-de-sac of oversized boxy houses with no architectural detail to them, creeks were turned into concrete drainpipes. The old people whose families had lived there for generations were forced out because the taxes skyrocketed and the neighbors complained if they had dandelions on their lawns. My own parents, who had lived there all their lives, got a notice from the town that the jerk across the street had complained because there was a "junk car" in their driveway. It was a used car that my brother was working on to fix up and sell. That used to be a normal sight in our small town, but now it was offensive to the newcomer living where the woods used to be.
I raised my daughter and bailed as soon as she graduated. I moved within my state but to a more relaxed area near to the ocean and accessible to country and farms. And guess what? The people who live HERE complain about how built up it has gotten here since they were young. I guess it's everywhere.
The phrase “you can’t go home again” has entered American speech to mean that once you have left your country town or provincial backwater city for a sophisticated metropolis you cannot return to the narrow confines of your previous way of life and, more generally, attempts to relive youthful memories will always fail.
This. A thousand times, this! ^^^
I wasn't trying to relive youthful memories when I returned to the area where I grew up. But holy crap, was I astounded at how much I grew to loathe the place. "Narrow confines" is right. 192 days to go!
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