They Say You Can’t Go Back

I always heard that you can never go back. But imagine for a moment that you grew up in small-town Arkansas and then moved to the Gulf Coast in your late twenties, and then to glittery Malibu in your late thirties. Then, imagine that in your late forties you left to pinball around the country for several years before moving back to Malibu, let’s say, a few days ago. Then, imagine that you needed some bananas and went to the grocery store and got into a short checkout line staffed by a face that you recalled and that when it was your turn the kind man with Juan Carlos on his nametag looked at you with a bit of a furrowed brow and said, “Hey buddy. It’s been a while.”

You imagine all that, and in the meanwhile I can tell you for certain something that feels really good: To be remembered. To be missed. And to be welcomed back.

I will never know how it feels to be considered physically attractive, but there may be some benefit at least to having a physical appearance that is, to put it kindly, distinctive. It surely made me feel good to be recognized after all these years.

I guess we all want to be Norm at that Cheer-ful pub in Boston, and as the song shared, have a place to go where everyone knows your name, and they’re always glad you came. For some, that means never leaving home. For others, that means the exact opposite. But maybe, every once in a while at least, it can happen for some of us when we shift this camper-van called life into reverse.

I always heard that you can never go back, but for the first time I am giving it a shot, and after $1.51 worth of bananas, I am now happily questioning that premise.