Growing up I couldn't wait to get out of the town I grew up in

The notion of 'going back' is alluring, but it's an impossibility. Yes, there is the geographical place that you can revisit, but we change the people we knew change and increasingly so, the physical surroundings which we grew up with or which we were so fond of our altered beyond recognition. The best place for reminiscence is in our heads, perhaps with friends in a conversation or looking at old photographs. Nostalgia is powerful, but we cannot regain everything that we think we've lost.

Too many people of my age try to live in the past and are so disappointed most of the time. I love reminiscence, I do nostalgia quite well, but I try my hardest to live in the present and enjoy today.

I moved back home after 18 years away. I had bought the house my grandfather built from my mom after my grandma died 5 years before that. I spent the first year thinking, "damn! I'm home!" Still a fair number of the same people I grew up with. As the last 25 years have gone by, things have changed...Now I drive by most of those good folks on my way too and from my house...I am just down the hill from the cemetary. I was just talking to someon on here about how wierd it is to be the last one (other than my dad, who really isn't good company) of my family left here...and we were one of the first families here...it's not the same. Not the same quality of people. It is still home and it is still very much mine, but it's not the same.

I find myself pining for the old days sometimes. Not sure why, as I’m certain I’d be happier where I am now, than where I was then.

Absolutely !! My mom still lives in the house I grew up in. But when I visit, I cringe at how decrepit the neighborhood looks now.

I didn’t grow up in a small town but this still resonates. Crazy how life does this to us.

I know the feeling. Funny how some things come full circle.

Yep - me to

Yeah i missed mine too but the taxes are so high there.. and the crime 😳

Sad huh?

I never moved out of the town I grew up in

I never want to go back

There might be some truth in the saying, you can never go back.