Thank You for the Memories

That's the thing about this city...

It gets in your blood. Those that were not born in this small city, USA, berg of central north America, simply do not understand. It is a bit like the Hotel California where, "you can check out anytime, but you can never leave".

I was born in this city. I lived the first eighteen years of my life in this city. I reached epic monumental milestones in this city. I left this city. I no longer live in this city. Yet, when I visit, it feels like a place lost in time. Nothing has changed, yet everything is different. I fail to recognize the new buildings and businesses. The cross-country course I used to run is now a golf course. The Dairy Queen which served as my first job in high school looks nothing like the slowish fast-food joint that catapulted me into the workforce at seventeen. The house where I grew up faintly resembles the familiarity I recall; yet the windows stare back at me, full of sadness and regret, as I assume that house could never be adequately loved the way it was when my family inhabited its few walls.

The cemetery next to the street where I grew up and ran countless miles training for cross-country and track seasons looks the same from the outset. Yet, the closer I look, the more I see the headstones have rabidly multiplied. How many of the townsfolk have passed away since I lived there? Several deaths I know about, how many remain a mystery?

This is still a small city, though it seems less small than it did when I was a child. Everyone knew everyone. Business was not private or personal, despite how much you wished it to be. There is an element of accountability that comes from living in a city devoid of a large population. You know that the choices you make will no doubt be judged by the strangers (and friends) that surround you. I do not miss that aspect of this city. I enjoy the anonymity I have in my current city. Yet. There is something to be said for questioning your every move, knowing full well it will be reported in the small city newspaper, based on the level of intrigue it garnishes. This fact alone kept me on the straight and narrow as a young adult, I am quite sure.

The break I made from this city years ago produced a freedom in my soul. I loved growing up there. Yet, it felt a bit stifling. Like a person was not allowed to adequately mature, change or recreate oneself. The people making up the city, giving it a distinct personality, would not allow it. There was an unspoken, but very much understood, expectation to remain the same person you identified with as a child, never allowed the freedom to expand upon that in which you learned from inception.

The memories I have of this city are precious. My first kiss. My first Prom. My first race, before I realized running involves a measure of strategy and not just athletic ability. My baptism when I was nine years of age, on Mother's Day. My wedding. A blessed event marking a marriage that would crumble years later and end in divorce. Oh, how thankful I am that I did not suffer the throes of divorce in this city! The judgement would have eaten me alive. If only in my own mind's perception of others' views of me.

The thing about this city is that has a unique personality of its very own. Much like a person, it was born, it has lived, it has grown and it remains to be seen what it will become. The years have been kind to this city. It narrowly escaped a destructive tornado several years ago that lambasted a nearby town just miles from its outskirts. The industry in this city has successfully employed many of its inhabitants as well as actively recruiting newcomers to the area with the promise of new jobs and a better way of life.

I once thought I would spend forever in this city. Marry my high-school sweetheart, have precious babies, live on the outskirts with the white-picket fence everyone dreams about. Have Sunday lunches with our parents. Watch our kids grow and attend the same school I did. Attend the same small church. Become an active member of the City Council or open a small retail shop downtown. Now I look at the path my life has taken and those initial dreams, lost in the murky passage of time, seem like the silly musings of an innocent and naive small-town school girl.

I would not use the term 'escape' to describe this city, as that would lead others to believe it was a horrible place in which to live. It was quite the opposite. Set back in time, simple family values and neighbors looking out for their own. A very Andy Griffith inspired Mayberry-esque existence.

Perhaps that is why I left and choose not to return. The city I knew, while in some aspects seems like it hasn't changed at all, in others, I scarcely recognize this city. It has changed with the times, despite my feeling like it would not allow me personally to do the same.

When I left, my life took a path of adventure coupled with tragedy, joy, excitement, new beginnings, a few endings and countless memories made along the way. Life has a way of changing a person and while it is comforting to travel down memory lane from time to time, I do not wish to reside there permanently. I could never have evolved in to the person I am now without leaving this city. Like a lover with no ability to provide, the city had to selflessly let me go. Practically forcing me from the boundaries defining its very walls into the great wild world of possibility beyond that which I scarcely knew to exist.

That's the thing about this city...it welcomes you, it loves you, it teaches you lessons, some very difficult to learn yet necessary to be successful in life. This city protects its own. Some it allows to stay. Others, it gracefully pushes away. I was one of the latter. I respect the lessons it taught me as a child and young adult. I respect the changes it has made over its countless years of existence. And I respect the fact that we could not coincide as one unit due to the knowledge this city had that I was meant to be there for a time, but not forever.