You Can't Go Home Again ... Or Can You?

My step-brother has been posting facebook updates about his pending trip to The Old Pueblo later this week. Some of his notes bring back fond memories, touched with a hint of melancholy and nostalgia. You see, I’m one of those people who believes you can’t go home again.

That sentiment may seem odd, since a great deal of my fictional writings have revolved around the Sonoran desert. My mystery novel draft is set in Tucson. The romance I’m currently penning is set in pioneer Tucson. And, the Sonoran desert played a prominent role in two of the writing exercises for my fiction class this term. But, the Sonoran desert is no longer my home. And, I don’t think it ever could be again.

Each time I’ve revisited Tucson, I always expect the impossible. I assume it will look, smell and feel exactly as it did when I left. In my mind, I “know” what Tucson should be, and it’s frozen in my mind: a “perfect Tucson” or “perfect desert” filled with all of the things I loved and all of my favorite places, while lacking those things I disliked.

But, the actual city and surrounding area never look the same. Some things do but enough has changed to cause a strange kind of vertigo of memory. Revisiting Tucson and the desert causes a clash of memories, as the new changes garishly, violently, forcefully intrude and corrupt my memories, leaving me with feelings of loss, uncertainty and a rage I can't fully explain or express.


Another problem with returning home is the self I bring with me. That is, the person who grew up near Tucson was a different person than I am now. When I return to the desert, one of two things happen. Either I expect to find the person I left behind all those years ago, to recapture the best days of my youth. But, that doesn’t happen.


Or, I subconsciously expect to bring my "new self" with me to the desert. I expect the “me” who is older, wiser, more mature and better able to appreciate what my old home offered to travel with me. Convinced I’ve left the young me behind, I assume all my reactions to Tucson will be filtered through my new perceptions, values and interests. But, the remnants of my childhood home jar my new self and make the visit one fraught with emotion and frustration.


Revisiting a former hometown is a great deal like returning to the family home for the holidays. As you approach the door, you’re an an adult. You probably have some measure of success in your life, perhaps a significant other, children, an education or a job. And, you’re living life according to your own values and needs. But once you cross the threshold into the old family home, the old family dynamic rears its ugly head. Worse still, you’re expected to resume your childhood role within the family dynamic, as if you never left, aged or changed.


Maybe you were the spoiled baby or the only child that everyone doted on. Perhaps you were the overlooked middle sibling, expected to play peacemaker when Mom and Dad fought. Or, you’re the rebellious oldest child, breaking all the rules and pushing the limits. Even though you believe you left those roles behind you when you grew up, you slip back into them, often without realizing it, at family holidays.


Sadly, most people don’t realize how quickly they resume all the bad, dysfunctional habits of the past. But, spouses, children, friends and other onlookers do see it. The addition of these new participants into an existing dynamic causes earthquakes within the family. A spouse or child can’t understand why the rational person they know from their own home suddenly changes into someone they don’t recognize, whose behavior is 180 degrees from what the spouse or child expects. If that person points out these changes, it causes an even greater disruption in the existing dynamic, since now the entire family is alerted to the disparity.


If you return home, you either bring a new self with you, once that no longer fits into the old tapestry. Or, you lose your new self and return to your old role, a role you probably consciously worked to leave behind. No, you can’t go home again.