Almost two years ago, I went back to the town where I grew up.

It was a planned return, following my young adult’s graduation from college. What I expected was familiarity. What I encountered instead was something closer to dissonance; the sense that the physical place still exists, but the way it once held people together has shifted in ways that are hard to fully name until you’re standing inside it.

One of the first stops I made was to the church I grew up in. I had hoped, almost instinctively, that I could step inside for a moment. Sit quietly. Let the place hold some version of memory: prayer, reflection, the texture of time passing more slowly than it does elsewhere.

The doors were locked. That detail has stayed with me longer than I expected. It wasn’t just inconvenience. It was symbolic in a way I didn’t fully want to admit. When I was young, those doors were never locked. Churches, at least in my memory, were not only institutions of worship but places of openness; physically and socially. You could enter, linger, be present without needing permission. Standing outside the doors, I was reminded that even the most stable-seeming places can change their posture toward the world.

Another realization came later, at the cemetery where much of my family is buried. Surprisingly, I did not feel sad. Rather, it was peaceful. It was as if a small part of me was “feeling” the comfort my relatives once brought to me. My uncle, one of my last remaining older relatives, has a dark sense of humor about it. “If you want a family reunion,” he likes to say, “just go to the cemetery.”

It’s true in a way that isn’t meant to be funny. Generations are now gathered in one place, and what once spread across living rooms, kitchens, and holidays has become geographically concentrated in stone and memory. It is a different kind of continuity. One that no longer includes conversation.

Between those two points, the locked church and the cemetery, I spent time revisiting what remains of the town’s social life. A few local hangouts still exist. A few familiar faces remain. I caught up with a dear friend, and for a moment, the past felt briefly accessible again.

But the overall impression was quieter than I remembered. Less density of interaction. Less sense of spontaneous connection between people moving through shared space. It isn’t that kindness has disappeared. People are still kind. If you speak to someone, they respond. But the vibrancy I remember, where everyday encounters felt woven together into something larger, feels more dispersed now.

My young adult had a more naturalistic view.  He noticed one thing immediately: “It’s so dark here. You can actually see the stars.” He also noticed something else. People spoke to us more. Strangers acknowledged one another in passing. After a moment, he asked, “What am I supposed to say to them?” I told him what I had learned over a lifetime of moving through different kinds of places: “Just be nice.” It sounds simple, but it isn’t always the default everywhere.

The contrast between my home town and where we currently live became even more apparent when we returned home, a large and densely populated metropolitan area, plagued by light pollution that erases much of the night sky. People are surrounded by others but often function as though they are passing through separate worlds. And yet, I also recognize what this place gives me. Access to healthcare systems I rely on. Professional infrastructure. Resources that are not as easily available elsewhere. Those things matter in a different, but very real way. So, I find myself in a kind of quiet tension between places.

I don’t think there is a single correct place to live. There are only tradeoffs that become clearer over time. Some places offer continuity and recognition. Others offer opportunity and infrastructure. Most offer some mixture of both, unevenly distributed.

What I took away from our visit to my childhood town, was not a conclusion, but a recognition. Places change. People change. And sometimes the most difficult part is not the loss itself, but realizing that what once felt permanent was always more fragile than I understood at the time.

We don’t really go back to where we came from. We only ever visit what remains of it.