Do you remember scenes like this from your childhood?
I will always remember the sense of forlorn desolation when my friends moved away. They were off to colourful exotic places with lives of adventure ahead of them... and I was stuck here in boring old Alberta where nothing ever happens. I wished I could sail away from here with them.
As I got older I became rooted here, for some reason. I'd seen friends and family uproot themselves and move clear across the nation to pursue jobs and careers... but for some reason we always stayed planted here. Moving away might be good for one of us, financially, but not for both. Selling one house and buying another never seemed to be something that would work in our financial favour, and all our families were here. Moving never seemed to make sense. Besides, I'd seen people sell their souls and move everything to grease the wheels of their careers and for many it just didn't work out. My wife's family is from the Maritimes and their hearts and souls were always back there. They got stuck out here when their kids established themselves here... and though they had the big house, the three car garage and a comfortable retirement ahead of them - they missed their family and roots back east. They were and are far from home. And - when you spend that much time away... you can never spiritually go home again. The people and times change, and the world moves on.
Today we are doing well enough for ourselves. Sure, we live in a modest home... but it's paid for, as are the vehicles and other debts that a family accrues and pays off over the years. We are not rich, but we're free - and thank God for that. But... with the family in shambles, and we have no further ties here... sometimes I get restless. I see job opportunities elsewhere and don't apply for them because of the move that it would entail.
Unless the wife decides otherwise I think I am going to stay here, and die here. There's not many better places to be for a fella like me... and a lot that could be much worse.
Do distant roads call out to you? And from where?
I was one of the ones that moved, and I can tell you from a kid's perspective it just plain sucked. I was never in the same school for more than two years running. Just about the time you figured out who you could trust and made some half decent friends it was time to pack up, say goodbye to them and move again. You just can't help but be the odd man out. Never mind trying to catch up with a different curriculum. At 16 I left Caracas and all my friends again and got shipped off to a boarding school in east bag-scracth Maine. Took me about six years to get my head to stop spinning. Probably never really did. Is it really any wonder I turned up to be such a fuck up?
ReplyDelete... I know that all the multi-culti-western-libturds are all for banging around the world and visiting every exotic third world shithole, but I am convinced it is plumb evil to put kids through that. One of the most damaging parts of moving constantly like that is that you loose your grounding and the sense of belonging to somewhere, or being from a place. Plays with your head something awful. It makes it wicked difficult to have a good footing when the ground under you is always moving.
ReplyDeleteThat is the shits, M. But for what it's worth, I'd hardly call you a fuck up. I see the good things going on in your shop and I just turn green with envy. I wish I had your shop smarts and some of your experience!
DeleteOh believe me, you well know the magic of editorial power. Whatever skills I've acquired were learned the hard way, messing up more times than I care to remember. If there is a mistake to be made in life, I've made it. I've made mistakes that haven't even been invented yet. I'm just clawing at the dirt, out of sheer desperation, scratching to survive.
DeleteAs an oil camp brat life was always transitory. Always struggling to get your bearings. The bar scene from Star Wars had nothing on the cast of characters I grew up with. Don't get me wrong, I am glad I no longer live in the shit-hole that is today's Venezuela. We were lucky and got out early, about 1980. But leaving the life you know behind and starting over in a foreign land is never easy no matter how many times you've had to do it.
I was raised in a military town. A quarter my class mates changed twice a year, every September and after Christmas break. You don't develop much attachment to people. The only advantage I can see to it is I don't 'miss' anyone much.
ReplyDeleteAs for places, I was pretty much happy where I was planted until we came to Arizona for a visit. Being able to breath without being drugged out of my mind was/is fabulous. When all our obligation were fulfilled, we moved. I have no intention of moving back until I become so decrepit I can no longer take care of myself.
Welp, maybe I lucked out in spite of myself Judy. It might be that I dodged that one about 'being careful what ya wish for...".
DeleteI ended up moving to the south end of the Left Coast when I retired from the military, as we figured we'd have "family support." I grew up on the water, and served on the water. Now I make my home with the tumblin' tumbleweeds. Go figure. The "family support" we were hoping for never happened. Indeed, we feel more isolated now than we did as we moved from place to place in the military. More so, as I'm now an island among loony Lefties, dindu welfare bums, and "sanctuary" wetbacks. Time marched on though. I've been in my job for seventeen years. My house is my only debt. The kids are on their own, but local. I got active in the church. I've got a few good friends. I guess I'll be dying here as well.
ReplyDeleteI guess it all comes down to this; the church isn't the building, but the people within it...
Yep. You can say that again Pete. I love the ones in our little chapel. They are so welcoming and nice - it reminds me of when we were all better people living in better times.
DeleteGlen, as you know, this is something that I have struggled with for 10 years: I lived in my home town more or less continuously for the first 20 years of my life and even then, I was never really more than 3-4 hours from home. Now I am half a country away, and even thought we have been here now 20% of my life, this still does not feel like "home".
ReplyDeleteThat said, I am cognizant as well that if I went back, it would not be as I remember or I imagine. That is not a reason to not go back of course; what it does mean is that one has to consider the option with eyes wide open.
'Thought of goin' back, but all I'd see are strangers' faces, and all the scars that love erases...
DeleteNeil Diamond... Brooklyn Roads...
Home is where you are, TB
Great quote Pete - Thanks!
ReplyDeletehusband died suddenly 1 year ago and house was attached to his job lost all income and place to live overnight, literally.
ReplyDeletewould love to move home to west virginia but $$ and it isn't like it used to be
you really cannot go home again because it all changes as time passes
however , the knowledge of an area, the people, the layout, the customs, the geography is all in you where you grow up have never been able to assimilate all this in any of the many places lived in since
you feel like you are without reference of any kind in each new place when you start to get some familiarity you move [husband's job]
but it is still not 'home' i have been told that the crime is huge in my hometown where we hardly had any crime when i was a kid you cannot go home again but you can wish for it! you are blessed filthie you do have roots and you know your way around it is a blessing. just wish you'd had a couple of normal sons to bring comfort when you get old.