Back Home...
It seems that I am surrounded by only two types of people when it comes to their philosophy on "home." By home, I am talking about whatever town they grew up in, and also about the friends and family left behind in said town.
The first group is the group of people who never get out of that town... or even if they do, they surround themselves with other displaced people from that same town. I went to school with two groups of people like this. You Tech people could guess one of the towns from which they came, right off the bat.
The second group is the group of people who leave that town as quickly as possible, shedding any lingering memories of their past and often discarding friends (and unfortunately to a large degree even family) as they would a fur coat on a hot day. These people always talk about how bad *insert town* sucked and how everything from back then was/is stupid. They don't remain in touch with their friends and they never go back to visit. Only current friends matter and are worthy of keeping in touch with.
I am the only person that I can think of immediately who would fall squarely between these two groups. While I was able to "escape" the trappings of my hometown and forge a life for myself outside of that small circle, I do not forget where I came from or the people who were there with me while I was "coming from" there. On the same token, I also value my current friends and the place that I'm at now. I know this is the right place for me.
I can *almost* even comprehend the people in the first group, because your hometown and your old friends are familiar. There is something good and comfortable thinking about those old memories. As humans, we crave familiarity. However, I cannot fathom, in the absence of special circumstances, why someone would completely shed their former life as if it were an abomination upon their very existence. Do these people think they've become too cool to reconnect with their roots from time to time? Do they think that their urbanite, metrosexual lifestyle would be overly cramped by the quaint little town and people who helped usher them into adulthood? This, I cannot sympathize with.
Go reconnect with childhood friends every once in a while. Go see your family and remember what holidays at home were like. Go to a spot in your hometown where you have fond memories and remember what it was like being young and relatively worry-free. I think you'll find that it's a good release from the pace of life most of us tend to live.
The first group is the group of people who never get out of that town... or even if they do, they surround themselves with other displaced people from that same town. I went to school with two groups of people like this. You Tech people could guess one of the towns from which they came, right off the bat.
The second group is the group of people who leave that town as quickly as possible, shedding any lingering memories of their past and often discarding friends (and unfortunately to a large degree even family) as they would a fur coat on a hot day. These people always talk about how bad *insert town* sucked and how everything from back then was/is stupid. They don't remain in touch with their friends and they never go back to visit. Only current friends matter and are worthy of keeping in touch with.
I am the only person that I can think of immediately who would fall squarely between these two groups. While I was able to "escape" the trappings of my hometown and forge a life for myself outside of that small circle, I do not forget where I came from or the people who were there with me while I was "coming from" there. On the same token, I also value my current friends and the place that I'm at now. I know this is the right place for me.
I can *almost* even comprehend the people in the first group, because your hometown and your old friends are familiar. There is something good and comfortable thinking about those old memories. As humans, we crave familiarity. However, I cannot fathom, in the absence of special circumstances, why someone would completely shed their former life as if it were an abomination upon their very existence. Do these people think they've become too cool to reconnect with their roots from time to time? Do they think that their urbanite, metrosexual lifestyle would be overly cramped by the quaint little town and people who helped usher them into adulthood? This, I cannot sympathize with.
Go reconnect with childhood friends every once in a while. Go see your family and remember what holidays at home were like. Go to a spot in your hometown where you have fond memories and remember what it was like being young and relatively worry-free. I think you'll find that it's a good release from the pace of life most of us tend to live.