You Can't Go Home Again

 " You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." 

from You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe  

This past weekend, the fam absconded from the environs of the Fortress of Ineptitude for a three hour drive down to southeastern corner of North Carolina to my other house, what was once my childhood home.

It was my first trip to this place since December 2019.

It was our first family trip anywhere since the pandemic began.

It was our first overnight excursion with our dog, Rosie.

The arrangement I have regarding this house is my brother stays there. He sends me a modest rent payment which I use to cover the cost of insurance and taxes. My brother is more than a mere renter but serves as a caretaker of the property, making repairs and improvements as needed. 

The house became mine by necessity when my mother had to be committed to a long term facility with the worsening of her Alzheimer's.  After her death, I was torn as to what to do with the house.  I saw no need to keep it but I was loathe to lose a part of our family's legacy. 

That's when my brother made me an offer to make sure the house was being lived in, cared for and protected. 

It was a viable proposal that kept me from making a hard choice. 

For awhile. 

During the course of my visit this weekend, I felt a disconnect from those surroundings that I never felt before.

I've never been big on sentiment for the time of my youth and the home I lived in for those years.  But with the death of both my parents, I suppose connections to whatever family I have left has become more important.

My brother and I were never all that close but this partnership of maintaining our parents' legacy in that old house has forged a connection that I did not think could exist between us.

But my brother and I are very different people.  He can be loud and brash and uncouth. He thinks he's being funny but he's not. 

But I cannot deny that he has stepped up in taking care of this house. I think mom and dad would be proud of what he's done; I think I am too. 

But I think I might be done with this house, the small town in which it resides and the surrounding country folk. 

I never truly felt at home there when I lived there.

I certainly don't feel it now.  

You can't go back home again.