I had a teacher in high school who used to say you couldn’t go home again. When I returned home after a few years away at university, I thought I knew what he meant. The open fields I used to play in had been developed. Bright new big box stores were popping up everywhere. The shipyard was closing. Things weren’t as I remembered.

As I’ve aged, I’ve learned that perhaps it’s not that you can’t go home again, but that maybe you shouldn’t. Perhaps there was a good reason why you left in the first place. You may forget it for a time and bask in homesickness, but once you’ve landed back in the thick of things, it’s hard to remember why you ever wanted to return.

I miss my home in Edmonton. I loved Fredericton. When I really think about it, Saint John isn’t a place I remember fondly. Sure, I love some of the people here, but there’s not much about this city that has really endeared itself to me. After stomping around Bangalore, Manila, Memphis, Jacksonville, Tucson and Baltimore I’m itching to get out of fogville. I think I might actually prefer Winnipeg to Saint John.

Oh my, it must be really bad if I’m putting it down in writing that my redneck self would rather be in Winnipeg!

Mayhaps it’s the general blah I feel knowing that I come from a town where the potholes are plentiful, the air stinks, and entire buildings disappear in the near daily mists. The smell of the sea can’t wash away the stench of the mud flats or pulp mill. The plentiful lobster and atlantic salmon doesn’t make up for the missing Alberta beef. The Moosehead brewery and Keith’s Amber (Red) beer are poor substitutes for a trip to the Flying Saucer in Memphis. Nothing makes the t-shirt I saw a young father wearing out a dinner with his pre-school daughter today acceptable to me…

I am homesick, but not for the city I grew up in. I miss the city I’m claiming as my own.

Technorati Tags: homesick, small towns, Saint John, Edmonton

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