Can you go home?

I made the trip home this weekend to take my family back to participate in the local festival: Fiesta. Despite the usual family drama and seeing old friends, it gave me a chance to revisit some of my memories of growing up in Santa Fe. Reminiscing about perfect times and childhood wonder. Invariably I start thinking thoughts about moving home and how great it would be. But then the reality comes drifting back into my head and I remember how much I love good service in restaurants and shops (which you can't seem to get in Santa Fe), how much I hate driving on Cerrilios Road and how scorched the landscape seems after years of drought and devastating bark beetles. It turns out that after 15 years my friends and I have changed. Even if the places are the same, our baggage and collective experience makes us different and that makes things different.

In my mind it seems that reality can never live up the idyllic memories of our childhood. We can't go home because our home never really existed.