When I first left for College of Idaho my freshman year, Boise was beginning a metamorphosis of sorts. JUMP, the ambitious, megalithic project that Simplot was building downtown (and that I still don’t know what the hell it’s there for), was just setting up fences and getting ready for construction. The building seemed primed to change the landscape of Downtown Boise to become a more utopic, urbanized central, potentially emulating the West Coast cities that overshadow Boise, such as Portland or Seattle. At the time, I found it symbolic. Just as I was beginning a new journey, so too was the city that I grew up in, and we were both potentially ready to blossom into new beings. Now, halfway through my college career, JUMP is complete, and I am rather unnerved.
The reason I feel so uneasy is because Boise’s growth has expanded out from downtown into every nook of the suburban area – and I didn’t even notice. I knew that going away to College would mean that Boise was going to look unfamiliar every time I came home – that’s what happens when you’re gone 9 months out of the year – but I wasn’t expecting it to happen so suddenly, and with as much grandiose. On my way to work (in Downtown Boise) on Sunday, I realized that a new hotel was being built across the street from my work. On the drive home, I noticed a new apartment complex had been built by the Train Depot. I picked up some Jack in the Box on the way and realized that not only had the Jacksons across the street been renovated, it was a completely new building, complete with a car wash and a two-story addition. Another Maverick on the way home was fenced off and demolished, ready to begin construction on something greater. This all occurred in one day, and that’s not even a large sample of the changes I’ve noticed.
I suppose that I might just be sensitive to all of this because I’ve been disillusioned about what ‘home’ means recently. My mom moved homes just last summer, and I had to say goodbye to my childhood home. At my dad’s, he renovated my room into an office the moment I moved out. The dorm rooms I reside in change every year. The one thing I had left to call a ‘home’, the place I could look to where I could feel both nostalgic and comforted, was Boise. Yet that too is changing, and it is doing so without my say.
It makes sense. Boise is one of the fastest growing cities in the US, and I don’t see any signs of that slowing down. The people who are moving in are changing the landscape of Boise into something I’m not familiar with. On the whole, this city feels more pristine, rich, and, dare I say, ‘indie’. It feels as though Boise saw a few too many episodes of Portlandia while drunk and decided that that was the cool new thing to do.
Is this all good for Boise? I don’t know, but frankly that’s not the point of this. Boise was the one thing I could truly call ‘home,’ and I don’t really have that anymore. That’s fine – change happens all the time, and it usually turns out to be good. I’m just surprised that this was a change I had to encounter. College of Idaho is now the closest thing I have to a home, but even I’m tentative about calling it that because I’m only there for 2 more years. God knows where I’m living after that.
In the end, though, my old home is being renovated into somebody’s new home. A new generation is going to grow up in this revitalized city and they are going to love it (hopefully). I may feel a slight sense of abandonment, but that’s mostly because college is a weird time where people are constantly growing at a speedy rate. It’s like growth-squared. I’m hypersensitive to my past because I don’t even know who I am now. I need something to anchor myself to, and I’m slowly losing grasp of those things.
I’ll just keep grasping at places until I find one that I can truly call home.
