Thomas Wolfe (the writer from the early part of the 20th century) summed it up nicely in the words of his character George Webber: "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."
It's been over four years since I last went home to Georgia. In those four plus years, a lot has changed in my life and in the life of Snellville (from what I can gather). From my perspective, I've gotten married, traveled across much of this great country and around the world, experienced locations I've never been to, and become a father. From Snellville's perspective, new shopping locations, a new city hall, a more decentralized downtown, and a changing, more diverse population has given the town a new look and feel.
How will I feel when I return to Snellville this September? The Snellville I knew and loved as a kid is forever gone, replaced by this new larger version of an Atlanta suburb. Joshua and Liz will never see what I saw in the town that made this city great. No Snellville Day parades going down Main Street. No rural farmland just outside of town. No small town feel. A high school that has completely changed. I can only convey how this town looked in the 1980s as I grew up without showing it. And what will the people who remember me as a kid think of me upon my return now that I am a father and husband? They'll see certain flashes of the old me, but it will be a person shaped by years of Chicago and Baltimore experiences and not Snellville ones.
One thing is for sure: this will be the most interesting trip I have ever had going back to the town I grew up in.
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