I like the way the air tastes in my hometown. I like how every car has a unique sound, a rattle or clank as it passes by. Every car has history, just like this town does. I like how quiet it is. When there are police or fire truck sirens everyone stops and stares. I used to hate the way people stared in my hometown. I thought they cared too much. They stare as people walk down the street to check if they know them. But it’s none of their business who I am or why I’m walking down the street, I always thought. Here in my hometown, they take the time to recognize faces. They wave, or give a familiar nod even if they don’t know me. There’s nothing like cruising down first avenue in my hometown. Everything is familiar here because this is where my history is.
My heart broke the day my hometown didn’t feel like home anymore.
There are a lot of milestones in the first year of college no one told me about. They said college would be so different and that I’d never be the same again. They said it would be fun and I’d make new friends. They said I’d be challenged with new opportunities and I would learn so much. All of this was true, but they did not say how hard it would be to let go of the past, to slowly slip away from the familiar and into the unknown. I was not told I’d have to pry myself away from my hometown so that I can move on, because there are no opportunities there anymore. When I left, I it was time to start over somewhere else, but it doesn’t make the process any easier. Most of us fear the unknown. We want the security and familiarity of a home.
“Hometown” is defined as the city or town where one was born or grew up. A hometown can have an infinite number of meanings for different people. Some associate their hometown as the place they spent most of their childhood, others define it as the place where they peaked in adolescence or officially became an adult. I’m not sure there is a specific set of qualifications for a ‘hometown.’ I think the closest definition would come from splitting the word into two words, and then switching them: ‘town home.’ No, not ‘townhome’ like the condominium style apartments. Hometown means a ‘town that is home’. Depending on the person, the town they feel to be home could be anywhere. So, the more important question is: what is home? It might not even be a town; it could be a country, a state, a playground. Home could be a smell or a memory, a taste or a sound.
I don’t think home is just a place, or a house with walls and memories and my childhood bedroom, because that doesn’t even exist anymore. I feel at home with certain people, no matter where I am. I feel at home when I’m riding a bike, or listening to a live band. There are obvious differences between my old home and my new home. A population of 15,000, to a population of 2.5 million. Two story homes, to skyscrapers. Driving a car, to riding CTA. I didn't just move to a new college, I moved to a new city.
I’ve heard ‘home is where the heart is,’ but what happens when my heart is split in half and the only place in the world that ever felt like home, now feels like a distant, nostalgic memory? This must be a challenge many college students face, an issue we all deal with as soon as we leave home. When we’re at school, we say ‘I’m gonna go home for the night,’ meaning the dorm. We also say, ‘I’m going home for the weekend,’ meaning our hometown. So we now have two ‘homes’. ‘Home’ is more than just a word, it is a feeling. A friend told me the other day that I should start to feel at home no matter where I am. One specific place should no longer feel like home but I should be satisfied with myself so that everywhere I go feels home. I guess part of growing up is not having a home, but creating a home everywhere we go.
