Do you live where you grew up?

[eggplant16]

I have this great longing to go back to the town ( it is a town even though it calls itself a city) where I grew up. I don't know anybody there any more. My family are all dead. Why do I have this and what to do? What am I trying to solve?

Is it to do with the place OP? Or people? Or happy memories? For me, the place is a big part of it. I love the landscape and the familiarity of it.

I do.

after school I got out as fast as I could. I fled for university and to escape my toxic family.

i moved thousands of miles away, built a great career, but when it came time to start a family we started thinking about priorities. My home town had very reasonably priced housing in relation to the quality of schools. My toxic family had conveniently moved away. So here we are. Absolutely best financial decision we could have made.

Nowhere near, I'm 80+ miles away. I still go back to visit my mum but I wouldn't move back, it's too isolated although beautiful (Yorkshire Dales) I'm in the Midlands now Nd I live in a village that has a lot of greenery around but within a 5 minute drive I can be at pretty much any shop I need.

Maybe in time we can move somewhere not too far away but where the town centre is a little nicer. For now I'm quite happy where I am because I have everything I can possibly need on my doorstep including nature and nature walks.

I work and live within a mile of where I grew up. Everybody I know still lives here.
London.

Thats really interesting.

I wonder if a person has parents who moved about a lot, it creates this restless/not knowing where I fit in thing.

About an hour away from childhood home.

No. My parents were from London but moved to the MN classic nice little market town before I was born, so I grew up in the town. Hated it, used to daydream as a 5 year old about moving to New York (despite never having been there). Left home at 19 for London and have been here for almost 20 years now. I don’t miss my hometown at all, I wish my parents had just stayed in London and raised me there

God God, no!! Nowhere near and all the happier for that.

What you are feeling is quite natural.Humans feel a sense of wanting to "belong" somewhere. Sometimes I browse Rightmove houses in the various places I have lived, fantasising that I could go back... but then realise that without the people I loved in those places, it would not be the same.

Nope.

Hah no. Grew up in rural Scotland, moved to New Zealand for a decade, moved to France 15 years ago. I go back 2 times a year as my parents are still there. It’s gone from being a small farming community, to a snooty, smug, expensive retirement community. The school limps along with 8 pupils, most from the same family. Property prices are astronomical.

idk where we will retire - somewhere beside the sea I hope.

Nope. I'd moved 5 times by the time I was in senior school, but always within about 10-15 miles.

Moved to central London at 22, then moved out to greater London/Kent when I got married, we moved several times after that, each time further away from London. Did three stints in 3 different countries, finally settled back in the UK 150 miles from where I was born, 250 miles from where DH is from, in a totally different part of the country.

Yes in the same fairly small village. But I never left so never went back. I don’t have any family here (or anywhere) but I like where I live.

No, but I don't really consider where I grew up to be my home town any more - my parents moved there for work and lived there til I was 16, then we moved back to where my dad came from and I've lived there or thereabouts ever since (moved away for uni then moved back). Other than school friends who I am in touch with via Facebook (but never actually see!) I have no connections there, but do have family here.

I live about 4 hours drive from where I grew up. I used to enjoy visiting but when my parents passed it felt like the connection was lost. My childhood home is now an Airbnb and I keep being drawn to the ad, but I don't think staying there would be a great idea.

We are a town over from my home town, far enough away to have a feeling of space and closer to the city I work in, but still close enough to easily visit family and some old friends when I want to.

I had plenty of opportunities through work with attractive relocation packages, but actively decided to stay local-ish. Occasionally doing company funded temporary moves for a few months at a time.

Family and community mean too much to me.

No. I have visited twice since I left over 40 years ago. The place I grew up doesn’t exist anymore, replaced by a massive soulless housing estate. It was a small village but has been swallowed up by the local town that was three miles away when I lived there.

I don’t feel any urge to return.

I left home for Uni at 18 and, other than during the Uni holidays, I have never been home for more than 4 or 5 nights.
I'm currently a bit twitchy as I grew up by the sea and now live inland and, having it been home since last summer, it's a while since I've seen the sea. Where we live now has some amazing scenery but it's not the sea
More than that, though, is the sense of being known. In the past couple of years I've become very conscious that most of the people I know now have only known me as a mother and middle aged. I'm not in touch with anyone from primary school or secondary school or all of the activities I did then. I'm in touch with a couple of people from Sixth Form and a good few Uni friends although, due to distance, only meet up with them 2 or 3 times a year. I just feel that I have few shared experiences with all of the people I know now even though they have been in my life for 15 years or so. I think this is exacerbated as we happen to live somewhere where so many people grew up here and so, even if they weren't friends then, will remember key moments. So it's not that I want to go home (anywhere coastal will do for a blast of sea air), just that I want that sense of familiarity.

Have only been on two couple-hours visits to the place where I was brought up in the last twenty or so years, but it's somewhere I'd like to live - no family there or anything now, but it's a lovely part of outer London. I'd need 10x my income to live there though, so it'll never happen.

I'd really like to live in the part of London I spent my 20s in, but that's even more unlikely. I live in a nice town about 2.5 hours away, and it's a beautiful place, but sometimes I ache for London, I miss living there so much. Not all the time though, there were good reasons to leave at the time I did.

I live in the same city I grew up in but in a different district. I rarely go back to my childhood haunts . . . whenever I do it seems they don't match up to my memories.

My school has been rebuilt so is now a modern building instead of the lovely old red brick building which I attended.

The church that I was brought up in has been taken over by a different denomination

The park where I used to play is now a 'nature reserve' and feels totally different

Most of the shops our family used to use have disappeared

Only the allotments look the same

I love the area I live in now . . . I rarely go out without bumping into someone I know and it feels like 'home'.

I've not lived in the town I grew up in for over 40 years now. I left it at 18 to become a student and only went back during the uni holidays.

My mother still lives there though and will be 89 this summer so I do go back to visit every few weeks. It's nice enough and sometimes I do miss it a little, but other than her there's little now keeping me connected to it.

I live in the next town about eight miles away. I did move away and live in two other cities. I would have stayed in London if I could have afforded a property on my own. I like being near ‘home’ but I don’t know if I really ‘fit in!’

No, I'm about 450 miles from my hometown. It's a really great small city about 40-50 miles from Los Angeles, so far enough away not to be 'affected' by city issues, lol.

I'd move 'home' in a heartbeat except 1-DH doesn't want to live there, 2-My DS's would never want to live there, and 3-We can't afford to buy there. Well, actually DS1 would move to LA in a heartbeat as he's in the entertainment field & WFH, but #3 is keeping him from doing it.

I go down at least once a year for 2 weeks with my cousin who is also my BFF. We'd dearly love to live closer to each other, but that's just not going to happen.

I grew up in two different cities as aI
kived during childhood. I have lived in both those cities again, briefly, as an adult. Emphasis on briefly. About a year in each case.

The familiarity was great at first. But then you gradually come to terms with the fact that the people you loved aren’t there anymore. And that can be heartbreaking.

And often the place has changed, both materially and culturally. So you can get some shocks, in a way that wouldn’t happen if you’d lived there continuously as you’d gradually adapt. You can’t step into the same river twice as they say.

That said, we did consider moving to one of them, as there was an option of a branch transfer with work, to a few places and that was one of them.

We went to view a house to help make the decision. The answer was “not now but maybe later”. But that decision would be made at that point on the matter of facilities and amenities.

So I would say there is nothing wrong with a visit, or even visiting regularly and seeing how that develops.

I moved for uni and swore I'd never return, but gradually inched back. Now live about 10or so miles away in a much bigger, rougher town with better transport links to the nearest city.

At 18, the thought of knowing everyone there for the rest of my life filled me with dread, but now I envy my friends here who went to school here and know everyone.