A famous author once wrote that you can never go back home again. This is so true for most who emigrate to new lands.

Many yearn for the beautiful things they left behind, often momentarily forgetting the reasons that made them leave in the first place. The strategies they employ to deal with that vary from one individual to another. Some find it best to so totally immerse themselves in their adopted homelands that there’s no room for yesterday. Others live a surreal life of one foot here, one foot there – not physically, but via cultural and other associations, and access to foods, entertainment, shopping, and events that are overseas versions of what they left behind.

Yet others, torn between two loyalties and emotional attachments, and often despondent of what they must deal with in the new, physically return home. If stats are any indicator, though, most return to their new home after a short sojourn in the old country. They soon realize that the past cannot ever be fully duplicated. Yes, the geography is the same, but the memories involving family,, friends, and childhood can only be recaptured partially, if at all.

I guess Thomas Wolfe was so right in his book, “You Can’t Go Home Again.” But that applies not just to places of geography, as Wolfe himself surmised. In the human life cycle, we go through so many changes and events. Marriages dissolve, relationships go awry, classes graduate, careers change, jobs turn over, neighbors depart, and neighborhoods change.

It’s all part of life, I guess. But so is romanticizing about yesterday and emoting for the good of the past, present, and hopefully also the future. Both nostalgia and forging ahead are integral parts of the human psyche and life cycle. We all reminisce….but sadly, ever so often, we can never really go back home again.