I couldnt' go home again. I stayed about an hour or so from where I grew up. My whole family left. Now it seems like a ghost town.

I moved back after 18 years in DC mainly so my husband could be closer to his dad who was very ill (and has now passed). LOVE it. So happy to be back. We are in the next town over so close enough that I know where everything is but my kids go to the public HS v. the catholic school that I attended. Not all of my friends are around, and those who are lead full/busy lives and our kids are very different ages so it's not like I am right back just hanging out with the same old crowd. Like moving anywhere, I had to make my own new connections but at least I am doing it where the food is better and I love that my kids will have similar experiences to what I did growing up.

Anonymous wrote:Doing the full circle, going back home thing, TO ME, sounds like the most depressing thing ever. Like, an absolute worst case scenario.

OP: it's a nice suburb of a great city with a lot of local civic participation. Lots of young couples with strollers, a phase I am long out of. Parent is older. Again, have no desire to stay here after she is gone. Just reflecting on living in a place that I thought was long in my past.

I recently moved back to the general area where I grew up after being gone for almost 30 years. Like a pp said, there are echoes. It's not the same as if I'd never left though.

Doing the full circle, going back home thing, TO ME, sounds like the most depressing thing ever. Like, an absolute worst case scenario.

This is me, full time caretaker in a place I grew up in but not where I belong today. Friends and family have moved, their lives fully entrenched. City is overgrown and busy and have no interest in exploring it. Dreams of returning to the place I had made a life, as this is not my home, but in reality how do you start over?

Yeah, it's just a new chapter. It won't be the same but there will be familiar echoes. I left NOVA at 18 and came back at 31.

After 30 years of living in various parts of the US, found a job and am also a caretaker in the place where I went to high school (suburb of a large NE city). In a way it has been mentally helpful as I think through where my life has taken me. But also surreal as here I am on the same streets where my parents had a house, my first date, went off to college, etc. as if my life has been a giant circle.

Anyone else have this happen and how do you feel about it? I do know I will not retire here. This is only until my caretaking days are over.