You can never go home again

What a trite and cliché phrase. I’ve always found it to be the last resort of authors (especially in military fiction or sci fi) to describe in a sentence why their character is uncomfortable returning home. Heinlein used it in Starship Troopers; Haldeman raised this phrase to a veritable thematic art form in The Forever War. For better or worse, authors have used this since time immemorial. While I can appreciate the disconnection that a character should feel based on a return to his home after a life changing event, I’ve never really bought it…until today.

My wife and I attended my ten year college reunion. Both of us graduated from a small Baptist college in Oklahoma. For those of you who have the immediate first reaction of turning your nose up at my undergraduate education, I would like to point out that during the late 90′s and early 00′s, my college was ranked consistently in the top five liberal arts colleges according to U.S. News and World Reports. This isn’t a theology-driven diploma mill, but rather a rigorous blackboard jungle the teaches future leaders their trades while giving them a strong background in the classics, theology, and philosophy.

However, it can’t be denied that the reason most students come to this college is to pursue vocational ministry callings. There are business majors, scientists, nurses, and teachers; journalists, politicians, writers, and actors. However, the great majority of those in attendance at the reunion today, no matter their major, were involved in some kind of full time ministry. Couple this with the fact that my wife and one other woman (a close, dear friend of both of us) are the only full-time, non-teacher female professionals in the room, and I realized that I didn’t quite fit anymore.

This isn’t me being snooty. I applaud the choices of people that enable them to take care of their family, make an honest living, and do something that they love. But I recognize that this sort of life isn’t for me. Perhaps it says something about my faith. Maybe I’m a little too concerned with my own self-importance in my perennial quest to better myself by either writing or climbing the corporate ladder. Maybe I’m missing what’s truly important. A small part of me, however, argues that it is the productivity of the rest of society that allows my friends from ten years ago to live the lives they choose.

I guess I don’t fit in the little college bubble anymore.

I got the feeling from some of my old classmates that they were trying to recreate it in their daily lives. That’s not me, anymore. I’ve had ten years to outgrown that skin and shed it, and I honestly believe that I’m a better person for it. I will always treasure my undergrad years as one of the happiest times in my life. There is no denying that stepping foot on this beautiful campus felt a little like coming home after a long hiatus, but it’s the same kind of homecoming that I feel when I step into my parents home. It is a comforting, welcoming place, but it is ultimately not my home anymore. 

I can never really go home again.