The return to one’s hometown after months of living away is disorienting. I’ve come back to the place I once so eagerly called my home and have been tossed into a whirlwind of nostalgia. I’ve been away for months, and I’ve grown significantly during those months. I’ve learned more about what it means to be human, what it means to love people as my creator has, and what it means to live a good life on this beautiful green earth of ours. The people I’ve returned to might not know exactly the ways I’ve changed, and they might not even care. But what’s important is the way I return to my hometown with a renewed mind and an eager spirit. How do I return to the place of my origin with grace and love— to a place that has no idea the ways I’ve changed while I’ve been away?

At the end of this last semester of school, all the students in one of my classes went around in a circle and said how they felt they had changed over the course of the year, per my professor’s request. I heard from a lot of people that they had been introduced to so many new things throughout the year that they were not expecting. They said things like “I had no idea what I was getting into” or “I didn’t even know what that concept meant before, and now I’m living it out daily!” They reflected on how life-changing it was to be learning these things. I found, however, that I couldn’t quite relate to these other students in this way. My looking forward to college was very different than theirs. I knew exactly what I was getting into.

You see, when I committed to go to the school I now attend, I had a pretty darn good idea of the community I was joining and the things I was going to be learning. It seemed to be everything I had been searching for in an education, so I could only hope it would be a reality. I looked forward to immersing myself in this so much that I had a semi-distorted view of what it meant to leave my hometown. I ended up treating college like a promised land. It was the place I was always destined to be so I could leave my hometown in the dust. I couldn’t wait.

When I sat there before my classmates and reflected on how I had changed over the year, my response sounded a little different than most of theirs. I told them that this past year wasn’t really a surprise to me for the most part. The things I was learning finally made sense. It was everything I had dreamed of, and I had finally found my niche. The ways I had changed over the year didn’t really make me think differently of the place I was currently in; it made me think differently about my origin. How then was I supposed to respond to the place in which I was born and raised?

My reflection on my hometown has been especially crucial since, as I’ve mentioned in some of my previous articles, my parents are moving away from my hometown on the central coast of California to the city of Dallas, Texas. Upon returning to the central coast for a few weeks before heading over to Dallas, I’ve had a change in perspective.

I guess I wasn’t expecting things to change around here. It may be somewhat silly and self-centered, but I just assumed that things would stay the same while I was gone—that I would return to exactly the same place I left behind. I was in such a hurry to get to the place I knew I would soon call home that I didn’t even think much about the place of my origin and its importance.

It occurred to me as I began to get reacquainted with my hometown, though, that the central coast might be a real place with real people who change and grow and develop in complex ways — even when I’m not there to witness it. It turns out that, when I left for school, I had put my hometown in a box, taped it shut, labeled it “that place I used to live” and stowed it far away from my consciousness, as if I had conquered it or something. I decided I had this place figured out, and I could now move on to the "real world." How silly of me.

After having lived in both what I considered "the real world" and in my hometown, however, I’ve realized that even I had not figured out every pocket or corner of the central coast. There is still so much to be discovered and seen in my hometown; it was beyond silly of me to think I had figured out its every nook and cranny. This place is just as much "the real world" as any other place on this beautiful planet of ours. Sure, I may like some places better than others, and I certainly fit in some places better than others. I still consider Oregon to be the place I am meant to call home nowadays, but my particular affection for a place doesn’t make it any more or less a part of society. The central coast is a place. It’s a place with people and trees and rivers and stores and culture, and it is real.

Since being here, I’ve befriended people I had never met, sat in coffee shops I didn’t know existed and cherished the songs of birds I had never listened to. I had no idea this place could still surprise me, but, alas, it has. Though, I suppose it wasn’t just this town that changed while I was gone. A lot of things probably have changed about the central coast as it grows with time, but the coffee shops and people and birds which I’m only now acquainted with have probably all been there in the past. No, rather, I believe it was me who never noticed them. It was me who grew so drastically this last year. And it is me who is now more fully able to further adventure and explore in the land of my birthplace. I’m honored to become more acquainted with it in the days just before my leaving, though it will make my goodbye so much more bittersweet.

After spending a year in a very different atmosphere than the one which I grew up in, I was better able to understand the importance of one’s origin. The central coast is my birthplace, and I can never replace the memories I have from my childhood here with any newfound experiences in this chapter of my life. And that’s okay. My origin is not my eternity, and my future is not my whole story. These two different places were meant to serve two different purposes in the grand story that is my life.

I can never replace the memories of stargazing in the backyard during the summer or the smell of eucalyptus trees when driving near the ocean. I will never forget the perilous dips and potholes of our dirt road or the way in which the sun would fill my bedroom with warm light at the time of its setting. Instead, I will hope to create new memories in the places my future has in store. Perhaps I will only gain new memories of a window in which I am blessed to watch the sunrise or possibly the scent of pine trees that will fill my nose. There are other places I have to create memories in now.

My hometown is a place that will keep on being, even once I’m away. It’s a real place with real people, and it will continue to grow and develop over time. I owe it my childhood and couldn’t have possibly asked it for anything but the splendid upbringing that was given to me.

My advice: respect your origin.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!