The Way Back Home
By: Connor Cigrang
Tags: Memories, Happiness, Home, Nostalgia, Childhood

For reasons I can never explain, I have always been a person who never feels truly settled when away from home. There’s no feeling like it… going back home.

Every time I drive through that place, I can’t help but feel a smile forming. I believe that everyone can relate to this feeling, the feeling of comfort and security that is recreated by going back to your hometown. An obvious cliche, but I like to think that all people have a place they can always run back too. Whether it be where we grew up, or the part of the world that makes us the happiest, everyone has their own version of ‘home’.

The place that I call home is no big city, but rather a small town in rural Carroll County, Maryland.

Hampstead

If you asked anyone from Hampstead where they are from, they will typically all give you the same response, ‘a small town North of Baltimore’. I would know, I’ve given this same response countless times. It’s easier to say I live ‘near a big city’ than explaining the exact location, especially when the person listening likely has never heard of it.

I don’t mind it though. Yes, I’m from the country, the ‘middle of nowhere’, a place that most people have never heard of (and couldn’t care less about). But where I’m from isn’t what matters. What matters is the memories we make, the elements of home that put a grin on our faces every time we go back.

When I think of home, I remember being a kid, playing soccer at Cape Horn Park every Saturday and going too Greenmount Station afterwards to celebrate a win. I remember roaming the halls of North Carroll High School, and sneaking into Ms. Seibel’s classroom during lunch so our class could watch Step Brothers before she got back. I remember the anticipation of the final bell, which meant leaving school and heading out to soccer practice with my best-friends.

You see, in my mind, home is more of a feeling than a location. We don’t anticipate going home because of the place, we anticipate going home because of the overwhelming emotions that come flooding back every time we are there.

Within my thoughts, there are more memorable experiences than I can count; back roads, sports fields, and dozens of friends’ houses. At times, it can become overwhelming as I try to remember it all; the most significant location of course being my own childhood home. That house is where my entire persona was formed and every time I step back into that place, I am reminded of all the memories I have there with friends and family.

At times, I will find myself recounting a distant memory that I had not thought of in years. The other day I was in our backyard, surrounded by the woods, and had a miraculous revelation of running through those same trees years ago. Building forts, playing paintball, doing all the things I haven’t done in ages that used to be my daily past-times.

I guess it’s nostalgia, that part about being human that always manages to conger up memories we thought we forgot. Funny how it can kick in at any moment, and we can go from sitting at our desk to reliving the fondest memories of our past. Nostalgia is what makes home everything to each individual, what brings us back to, ‘the good ol days’, and reminds us of who we once were. Without it, we would never have the strong emotional ties to the people and places we hold dearest to our hearts.

Nostalgia is what I feel when I go back to Hampstead. It is those memories that come to me every time I sit down at Illiano’s J&P Pizza, or when I am running on North Carroll’s notorious black track. A unique feeling that no individual experiences in the same way, while simultaneously being a common aspect of our humanity.

For a guy who has always been someone who shows little emotion, I find it ironic that coming back home is the one instance which brings the most emotion out of me. The world is a confusing and scary place and as human beings we are often thrown into the thick of it with no prior warning. We are forced to adapt to our surroundings and trust what we have learned to get us through it. As I begin to find my own way through life and learn the ins and outs of ‘the real world’, I have come to realize the one and only thing that we can trust and fall back on.

Home

Home is where each one of us started our own journey; where we first learned how to live our lives and where our parents taught us the core values that we still hold close as adults. My home doesn’t look like much to the naked eye, but it is the one place that I know, no matter what, I can always go back too.

The funny thing is that unlike the rest of life, home always remains the same. While yes, people and buildings come and go, the location never changes. That place, that stretch of land will never disappear. Home, for me, is immovable and forever where I will return too if everything else falls apart.

There’s something about being back home; I can’t seem to put my finger on it, the best description would be ‘a feeling like no other’. The memories overwhelm my conscious, and I am reliving the greatest days of my life.

The back roads, the late nights, the good times; there’s no better feeling than being home.