You Can't Go Home

So I don't mean to transcribe the entire book in this blog but here is another excerpt from Travels with Charley that resonates with me. I have felt this, and just as much as the memory of me stands still back home as time goes on, my memory of home stands still as my life goes on... Despite what Bon Jovi says, you can't home.

"...What we know is dead, and maybe the greatest part of what we were is dead. What's out there is new and perhaps good, but its nothing we know... The place of my origin had changed, and having gone away I had not changed with it. In my memory it stood as it once did and its outward appearance confused and angered me. What I am about to tell must be the experience of very many in this nation where so many wander and come back. I called on old and valued friends. I thought their hair had receded a little more than mine. The greetings were enthusiastic. The memories flooded up. Old crimes and old triumphs were brought out and dusted. And suddenly my attention wandered, and looking at my ancient friend, I saw that his wandered also. And it was true what I had said to Johnny Garcia-- I was the ghost. My town had grown and changed and my friend along with it. Now returning, as changed to my friend as my town was to me, I distorted his picture, muddied his memory. When I went away I had died, and so became fixed and unchangeable. My return caused only confusion and uneasiness. Although they could not say it, my old friends wanted me gone so that I could take my proper place in the pattern of remembrance--and I wanted to go for the same reason. Tom Wolfe was right. You can't go home again because home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory."

This song is me: