Back Home Again
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” T.S. Eliot
One of my father’s favorite quotes is T.S. Eliot’s, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” In part, I approached my return to Meridian with this view, hoping that I might be pleasantly surprised by what I found. I was also eager to spend more time as an adult with my dad and learn more about his business. And yet another part of me was determined to know the place for the first time simply by not associating with organizations I had known previously like the church, or activities I had participated in like tennis at the country club. I even endeavored to live on the opposite side of town from where I grew up.
Instead of simply having a new perspective on the old familiarities, I would strive to explore new parts and different people in my hometown. I learned everything I could about the operation of a small business while obtaining my real estate license. I volunteered with local non-profits like Habitat for Humanity and Main Street Meridian’s downtown development initiative.
I tried to stretch my cognitive bandwidth within my other interests of affordable housing and economic development. I absorbed what I could from associates of the Stennis Institute at Mississippi State University who were tirelessly trying to inspire Meridian to create unique public-private partnerships and harness economic incentives such as the New Markets Tax Credit1 as a means for greater investment in low-income communities.
Socially, I was more reserved. I did date several women during the first four years of the five that I spent back in Meridian, and even lost my virginity, something that lasted until I was in my early thirties. I’m not sure if I broke any hearts, but I know I must have confounded these women as we seemingly had enjoyable months getting to know one another, only for me to abruptly shut down and slam the door on the relationships. I wasn’t intentionally setting out to hurt people. I think I was telling myself that I just hadn’t met the “right one” and that I would know “her” when I found her.
As I now write, I think to myself, how much longer did I think I could go on like this? How long could I continue winding myself up with the flimsy expectation that the next woman I met might be the one? It was like playing the lottery despite knowing that the odds of winning were remarkably low or even non-existent. But I would try to wind up once more. A friend of my father introduced me to a young woman from out of town. She was working on affordable housing in her community and reading Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God. What was there not to like? However, halfway through our first lunch together, I felt the energy just drain out of me as I imagined pursuing yet another relationship with the opposite sex. And I said to myself, “I can’t do this anymore.”
At this point in my journey, I contemplated singleness. But I couldn’t imagine how I could come home day after day to a home with no other human being present. And although a roommate would be a simple remedy for this, I knew deep down that I desired much more than a roommate. I wanted a soul mate, if there was such a person out there for me. But how was I to find a soul mate if I wasn’t willing to accept my own?
*Thanks for reading and/or listening. Continue to next post Grand Canyon. To read from the beginning please go to Why I'm Writing.
Have thoughts, questions, or feedback? Please comment — it means a lot to hear from you on this mostly solitary and introspective writing journey that I’m on.
“The NMTC Program attracts private capital into low-income communities by permitting individual and corporate investors to receive a tax credit against their federal income tax in exchange for making equity investments in specialized financial intermediaries called Community Development Entities (CDEs).” United States Department of the Treasury, Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.
Although I have no plans to move back to Meridian, I have often thought that I wouldn’t object to it if I HAD to move back for some reason- mainly, because it would be so interesting to go back to live in my home town but this time “as an adult” with new eyes and new perspectives, having been away for so long and having had so many formative life experiences outside of little Meridian. So I really appreciated hearing about your journey home in this post. I’d really enjoy hearing about your observations and what you learned!