Has anyone ever felt a yearning to go back to where they grew up ?

[slet]

Nc for this.

I grew up in a city, let’s call it city A. Met DH when I was a teenager, who is from city B. The two cities are only about 40 mins apart. When I was a teenager and in my 20s, I definitely saw city B as much more aspirational and cooler than my home city, and when DH and I got married, we bought a house in city B. We both still work in city B so it is more convenient to live here for work. Now we live just outside city B in a very “naice” area which is seen as fairly prestigious, although I’ve never really felt the area was “me” but we have a lovely home and friends locally and our dc are settled in school (early secondary) .

However, more and more I feel a yearning to go back to city A. I have felt like this for a few years. My parents live there so we do go there fairly often and we are also big supporters of the football club of city A (I know some people won’t get this but it is quite a big deal!). City A is also undergoing a bit of a renaissance with lots of investment and is becoming quite cool. I feel a strange sort of guilt towards it, as if it has taken me too long to realise what a special place it is. I have got a bit obsessed by it. I follow social media accounts about it and go on local forums, more than I do for my own area!
I feel ashamed that I moved away when I was growing up and thought i was too good for it. I realise what an idyllic childhood and adolescence I had growing up there. If I hear people from city B making lighthearted jokes about city A, I feel defensive and annoyed in a way that wouldn’t have bothered me in the past. I can’t explain it, but I feel a real longing for it. People would think i was nuts to feel this way as it’s perceived as quite a gritty place and very different to the area I live in now.

The other thing that has happened is that my dear dad has recently become terminally ill. So I feel like a lot of my feelings about city A are bound up in this too. We have had lots of conversations recently about him growing up there, the pubs where he and my mum went in the 1970s and all his memories of the place. This has definitely increased the feeling I have about the city but I was having these feelings anyway.

I feel like I can’t decide if these feelings are just silly, rooted in nostalgia and sentiment, given my dads circumstances at the minute, or something I should actually act upon, dh would think it was totally madness to move to city A now, and uproot ourselves when we are settled and happy where we are, with dc in school. It is only 40 mins away after all! But I can’t help feeling this longing to move. Facing the prospect of my parents mortality, i find it hard to imagine not having a concrete link to city A like I do now. I feel like without that I would feel weird and untethered. I sometimes think about moving back in the future, maybe when dc have left home.

I guess what I’m asking is has anyone experienced this kind of thing before? Did it pass? Or did anyone make the move? Am I being totally irrational because of what is happening with my dad?

Yes.

I'm from around 200 miles away from where DH grew up. We live in his town. I love it, I've built my home here. But my area will always be "home" too and I'd love to live there again.

We chose here as there is much better work opportunities. However as I can now do remote work, that's no longer as true. But DH works on site, so the job elsewhere would need to be right for him.

We talk about it. One day we'll manage it. But there's aging parents and DD will be at school etc, so it feels far away and like there's always something in the way. But one day we'll manage it.

I feel you.

Thanks @IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos

Does your DH understand? Presumably he would be willing to make the move?

He does understand. He likes the area and he loves the lifestyle we could have there (totally different, but it's kind of the lifestyle we have anyway because of who we are and our interests).

He's willing to make the move if we can meet some conditions, which I am completely on board with. It's things like being able to find him a job that at least matches what he has now, because although COL is lower there, we would want to relocate for a better quality of life. His parents are also a lot older than mine, as he's 9 years older than me and the middle child, whereas I'm the oldest of young parents. He doesn't want to leave them right in their last years, and I would feel the same about mine so I get it.

We've loved together for 15 years, so it's 15 years away from the place I love. The older I get, the more I want to go "home", but also the more roots I put down. It's a really hard thing being away from your hometown, especially if your family are all still there. But, sometimes we do what we need to to give our family the life we want for them.

Is your DH not willing to make the move? Or is it logistically difficult?

Yes.

But it would take an actual lottery win to be able to move back or even afford to rent there, so it will never happen. We were priced out.

@IpsyUpsyDaisyDoosive not had a serious conversation with him yet about it, this is just all happening in my head.

it would be logistically difficult until dc left school which is another 7 years away.

Start the conversation, 7 years isn't that far away when it's something as big as a relocation. Wouldn't hurt to get the ball rolling on at least getting him on board or working out if you want to.

Yes!! Sadly I have no ties there anymore so no reason to go back :(

Yes, yes I do. And the older I get, the stronger the pull. Like you, all based on sentiment (and football!). The area I’m from doesn’t have the things going for it that your city A does though. It’s much more deprived and gritty than where I am now and have Been for 40 years. But I also hear you op.

I work at a checkout and only yesterday a lady told me that day she’d been to a place near where I grew up and I just went oh my god that place is so beautiful- that’s around twenty minutes from where I grew up.

I said do you love it there? And she said that she’d grown up there and her two sisters were living there the past forty years. She said she was properly properly happy where we were (about two hours away) but that lovely feeling when you go to your home place will never go. She goes back every two weeks.

I am also on the local facebook groups and would move if finances allowed it and everyone concurred BUT I know a lot more about where we live now and I know people and people know me do for the moment I’m mostly content with where I live.

JitterbugFairy

Yes!! Sadly I have no ties there anymore so no reason to go back :(

My mum and some friends are still there but I do make it a point to go sit in the local park there twice a year, once in spring once in autumn at least. Dh drives through his old estate and just looks at his old house every Christmas. You should go for a wander there!

Yes. I am from a small town in a rural area. DH is London born and raised. I moved to London after uni and I have lived here 25 years. I’ve always loved it and my kids all love it and absolutely see it as their home and their future too. But now I viscerally miss my home town. I do not dislike London but I physically miss hone.

we can’t move while the kids are still in school. DH has said we could move after but we would both have to give up our careers so it’s probably a retirement dream. And by then I hope I might have grandchildren and all my children say they will live in London. So realistically I’m not sure I can ever move back and that makes my profoundly sad because I feel so connected to my childhood region.

I have moved back twice in my life and it hasn’t worked out. I’m currently living in the area I grew up in now. My experience is that you can’t turn the clock back. You change profoundly as a person . I have run into several people from my past . One I met twice and then never heard from again. The other I met once. Someone else I met a few times and then just didn’t want to see her anymore. I was trying to revisit something that I couldn’t really relate to anymore. The town has changed ged a lot. I have changed a lot. The trouble is there is nowhere else that is home . I’ve lived all over the place and moved constantly all my life. I feel rootless. It’s not a nice feeling.
Everywhere I go here there are memories and it unsettles me. Many of the memories are not happy ones. I’m planning to move again soon.

I think if you go back as the person you are now, and live the lifestyle you want now it will feel different. You don't have to recapture the past, and you don't have to live in the same town you grew up in. But if the area gives you the life you want, try that.

Or try a different area of a similar ilk. It's all about building the life you want and for some, that's elsewhere.

Many times, I’m from the Isle of Wight.

When I was young opportunities very very limited. Obviously remote working has changed that. DH would never want to live there, it does have its limitations, the ferry fare is outrageous and it’s the most expensive bit of water to cross in the world. If you get cancer you have to go to the mainland for treatment and many other medical treatments also mean a trip to the mainland. I have family and friends there still.

I live 200 miles away from where I grew up, my parents and brother still live there and I know that longing for "home" very well.

For us, it's logistically difficult. I couldn't earn the same salary there as I do where I am currently, plus I enjoy my job and it can't be done remotely. DDs are settled and I have a good network of friends here whereas back home I only have (some of) my family. All of my friends moved away from the area like I did because it's very rural and the job opportunities aren't great. Working from home has changed that somewhat but it's not an easy decision.

We live close by to DH's family, and I get on really well with them so we do have extended family close by here. If we were to move I'd be taking DH away from that and leaving our friends to exchange for being nearer to my parents and no other network.

For practical reasons it doesn't make sense, barring a lottery win but it doesn't stop me longing for home. I say to DH we will move when we retire but by then DDs may have children of their own and if they're here still, I won't want to move away.

It's difficult.

I live in London but grew up in the countryside. I yearn for the place I grew up and luckily my mum still lives there so I go back as much as I can. My sister feels the same (also in London). Sadly my London teenagers would never speak to me again if I moved them to the country at this point.
I do love London but yearn for my hometown and the familiarity, slower pace and green rolling hills!

I sometimes feel like this - I grew up and lived in south London for 27 years, until we moved to Norfolk. I find going on google street view and “walking” the areas virtually helps me to feel comforted in some weird way. It’s the closest I can get to being there again without actually making the trip (which is difficult for me now with a disabled dc and disabilities myself).

I have had major nostalgia and rose coloured glasses for the past few years.
I think about my hometown a LOT. It’s a small city, opposite end of the country to where I live now, but I had the best childhood and teenage years there. It just seemed to have everything, was quite pretty and always felt safe. I even long to visit my old primary school, and feel devastated that my high school was demolished!

I often go for “walks” around some of my old streets on google street view!

I grew up in Christchurch NZ. We're in Australia now and have been for decades. I miss Chch a lot but the truth is the city I miss has gone now. It's a really cool place with interesting buildings but the city has changed so much since the earthquakes.

No, not at all. I had an idyllic country childhood - my father was a true countryman and taught me so much about the natural world. We would picnic by the river where he leased fishing rights, and had long walks. When I was older I roamed all over the place with our dog. We helped out a mill owner when they went away on holiday, my Dad operating the water hatches. I remember collecting eggs from their hens. Also walking by their river and through their beautiful gardens and woods.

Attending a family funeral a few years ago, I wanted to show my husband the idyllic river where we had so many happy hours, us picnicking and Dad fishing - yes, the river is still there. But now there's a huge access road cutting through the countryside and those idyllic meadows surrounding this area are now a building site. Also I have only a very few family members left there.

I''m fortunate that I live in a lovely country area but most importantly I'm near to my only child and grandchildren. I have my memories and talk about my experiences often - my husband saying how lucky I was to have had such a great country childhood. My Dad loved cowslips, on one particular journey we used to do there was a huge bank of them and he always commented - outside my french doors I have some growing in terracotta pots - my tribute to Dad - so happy to see them. I would never go back, but do realise I'm a fortunate woman to have peace of mind and happiness where I live.

Me, everyday.

I moved from what you would call a deprived town to the rural edge of a Roman city. While it’s nice here I just miss my home so much.

my family mostly still live in my hometown too, but it’s not the same as it was when I grew up.

A is Liverpool, B is Manchester presumably.

Nope! Grew up in a thriving seaside resort. Always something for my age as I grew up, from fairgrounds, shops, carnivals, illuminations, skating, discos, pubs, clubs, parks, theatres, cinemas, boating, etc.

Like most run down seaside resorts, all that’s gone. Now it’s a miserable depressing place. No decent shops anymore, just the usual out of town supermarkets and all the money laundering Turkish barbers, nail bars, hand car washes, ethics speciality food shops that never have customers, dodgy takeaways, candy shops, mobile phone accessory shops, and charity shops and betting shops. Lots of drug addled zombies wandering around begging and causing anti social behaviour, mugging, break ins etc. Lots of lawlessness in general really.

As with other places, the council encouraged the old guest houses to take in ex offenders and unemployed from other places but put nothing in place to support them, so they turned to drugs, booze and crime to pass their days whilst living in ever worsening slums! No jobs anyway as no commerce or industry with it bearing seaside and now retail, hospitality, entertaining has gone, it’s left a vacuum.

I don’t live far away, but try my best to avoid the place as it’s all so depressing. Just about ok for a day trip on a sunny day if you stay on the promenade and avoid the dereliction and decay a street or two back. But even loads of boarded up shops, pubs and hotels on the prom too! So very sad to see it now after remembering it in its heyday.

I know exactly what you mean OP, and suspect we are talking about the same place. I am probably around the same age as your dad, and left at age 10, so a long time ago now. In my case, I think it is purely nostalgic as my childhood was very happy, followed by some quite hard and difficult times.
It's probably natural to feel like this as we get older, places change, people change, and there's a lot of comfort in recalling happy times.

That’s so sad to read and a reflection of Britain today.

No, I definitely want to stay away, and my children say they hate the place when we visit family!