You Can Never Go Home
I originally published this essay on Medium, but have since moved it to my personal blog.
A ChatGPT-generated image reflecting my personal reflections out the window of my first international flight.
Outside the window, the clouds are below us and movement is difficult to discern. It’s all white fluff with gray edges. The sky is beautiful though, clear blue and pristine. This scene is a metaphor for my life at this moment — a liminal space between what was and what will be, between the familiar and the unknown.
The panic attack from last night lingers like these clouds, growing greyer as we pass over them. The endless blue without a horizon represents the future open before me. My turbulent past lies beneath me, while the call of a new start surrounds me.
The night before my departure, as I lay in bed trying to sleep, the panic hit me as it hadn’t in over a year. I had found something edible and let my mind drift, hoping for a pleasant buzz and falling asleep to visions of sugar plum fairies. Instead, my unmoored brain trailed off into the land of fear and what-ifs.
I had things to do, plans coming to fruition, and the other half of my heart and soul waited for me across the world. While I should have been looking forward to holding my beloved in my arms, the images of what I was leaving behind came unbidden.
What hit me like a ton of bricks was the realization that this could be the last night I spent in my grandmother’s house, seeing the familiar Appalachian mountains, or even seeing my family in person. The next day was likely to be my last day on the soil of America that I had called home for over four decades, and that realization was the scariest thing I had ever confronted in my life.
I was leaving home.
The Complexity of Home
“Home” is more than a physical location. It’s a complex construction of memories, relationships, and shared cultural experiences that evolve continuously. Drawing from sociologist Dr. Zygmunt Bauman’s work on “Liquid Modernity,” I’ve come to understand that contemporary society experiences constant flux, making the notion of a stable and unchanging home increasingly mythical. Couple this with the brain’s unbidden reconstruction of memories, and the very concept of “home” becomes hard to define.
This transformation is particularly stark in the American context. A 2023 Pew Research Center study revealed a profound social fragmentation: between 2010 and 2023, political divisions had dramatically reshaped community dynamics. Sixty-seven percent of Americans reported feeling less connected to their hometown’s core values compared to a decade ago. This disintegration of shared community narratives makes returning home not just physically challenging, but emotionally disorienting.
I left my home in Southern Kentucky in 2013 and did not return for a decade. When I returned, it was not the home I remembered. Even when I had been there, it fit me like a too-small jacket, wanting to burst at the seams. Now, it wasn’t even that. It was full of strangers painted over a familiar landscape.
“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing’s sake, back home to aestheticism, to one’s youthful idea of ‘the artist’ and the all-sufficiency of ‘art’ and ‘beauty’ and ‘love,’ back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermude, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”
Thomas Wolfe’s words are accurate to my feelings, but Gangstagrass, Cody Johnson, and others put it more succinctly: “You can never go home again.”
This was a lesson I was learning on many levels. It wasn’t just the lack of my childhood friends being seen around town, or even the missing family members dead and gone these years. The people had changed. The culture had changed. There was a menacing undercurrent felt when it came to having different ideas and beliefs than those around me.
You can never go home again because the home you left doesn’t exist when you come back. It’s morphed and changed in some ways, and in others, it reveals that the idealized memories you hold of home never existed in the first place.
Political Disillusionment and Personal Transformation
My attempts to go home are about more than a small town in the foothills of the East Coast mountains. In many ways, my struggle to find my home is about the changes in America itself. The core fabric of what I believed in, from American Exceptionalism to being a beacon of democracy, justice, and freedom, has been forever altered.
For the past few years, I have been disenfranchised by the country of my birth. The COVID-19 pandemic seemed to send us all into a state of being where we forgot how to work with one another or treat our fellow humans with basic dignity. We became a nation of extremes, split down the middle with partisan agendas and cults of personality.
In the name of Making America Great Again, a movement spread like wildfire across the US. People were made distrustful, they wrapped their bigotry in Old Glory and blamed educators for being revisionists. Established laws and customs were torn down, and those very people who screamed that real history should be taught began rewriting America’s story to fit their narrative while the elected President set about dismantling the systems of checks and balances that were the hallmark of American democracy.
A republic, if you can keep it.
In 1787 Benjamin Franklin gave us an oft-quoted warning about the great experiment of democracy. We just failed to listen to our history.
Political scientists have meticulously documented this erosion of democratic norms. The Freedom House 2023 report shows a significant decline in democratic indicators. Between 2016 and 2023, the United States’ democratic score dropped from 86% to 74% — the most substantial deterioration among established Western democracies. This decline reflects systemic challenges in protecting civil liberties, ensuring fair electoral processes, and maintaining institutional checks and balances.
One of the largest factors in this erosion is the growing wealth being funneled into the American electorate. My views on wealth had significantly shifted as I worked in the Defense industry. I saw corporate greed prioritize shareholder profit over the needs of the employees. Some men and women worked for me who could barely feed their families, but the contractor that employed us had to keep a certain profit margin on those positions and was rather inflexible about it.
In 1976, the landmark Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo forever altered the course of American politics. Buckley v. Valeo made the expenditure of money a protected piece of free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Limits to contributions from others was constitutional, but a candidate could spend as much of their own money as they wanted on their campaign.
Skip ahead a few decades and the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC (Federal Election Committee) would only increase the rate at which money entered politics. This ruling allowed corporations and unions to spend an unlimited amount of money on political campaigns and led to the creation of Super PACs and the increase in hidden, “dark,” money in American politics.
Post Citizens United, spending on politics exploded. In 2012, the total spending on Federal elections (adjusted for inflation) was about $6.3 billion. By 2020, the figure was $14.4 billion. During the period since that staggering ruling, the amount of money contributed by billionaires rose 39 fold.
The 2024 election that would see Donald Trump cemented as President would set a new record: $15.9 billion. Over $4.5 billion in outside spending was recorded, with more than half originating from groups that do not fully disclose their donors, highlighting the growing impact of undisclosed contributions.
As these megadonors, whether as groups or individuals, continue to fund American elections, our electorate becomes more and more a pay-to-play process, leading to the downfall of democracy and the rise of oligarchy.
Disconnect from National Values
It’s not just money that has corroded the American system of government. When the vaunted Founding Fathers of the US Constitution enshrined American values in our most sacred of documents, they included the Bill of Rights. These first ten amendments to the Constitution were so key to the ideal being created that they were included right away.
Chief among them, the First Amendment, was a guarantee of the right to freedom of Religion and Speech. For 248 years this has been a guiding principle of our nation. This is not to say that such principles have not had their challenges, but they have remained core to the United States’ identity. Since the very early days of our country, there have been those who seek to tie the national identity to a religious identity — the Puritans and their “city upon a hill,” the Second Great Awakening, the Cold War Christianity that forced “under God” and “in God we trust,” upon the nation — but post-9/11 brought about a surge of Christian Nationalism and over two decades of Culture War.
In fifth grade, I was made to memorize the poem on the Statue of Liberty. For all of my mandatory education years, it was reinforced that America was a melting pot of culture and religion, and we all had our place here.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Under the leadership of President Trump French politicians have requested the Statue of Liberty be returned to the country that gifted it; we no longer embody the ideals it expresses. No more do we say we will take your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse. Now we say, “Show us the money.” For a few million dollars, you can become a citizen. Anything less than that, and you need to remain outside of our borders.
My grandmother was one of the kindest, most Christian people I had ever known. If she were still alive today, she would quote Matthew 25:35–40, where Jesus speaks about caring for the least of these: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”
The disconnect between political rhetoric and the Christian values my grandmother taught me became increasingly painful. Her teachings of compassion, love for one’s neighbor, and care for the most vulnerable seemed to stand in sharp contrast to the policies and actions of recent administrations.
Consider the treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers. The Christian teachings I learned emphasized welcoming strangers and caring for those in need. Yet, policy after policy directly contradicted these principles. A 2019 report by the Southern Border Communities Coalition documented over 1,100 instances of human rights abuses against migrants, including the separation of over 5,600 children from their parents.
Enshrined in our Constitution and Amendments were admonishments against cruel and unusual punishments, the right to due process, and citizenship for those born within our borders. Yet, the current administration challenges and defies these very laws with deportations without trial, revoking residency without cause, and sending unconvicted people into foreign prisons that are inhumane.
Journey’s Perspective
I love looking out the window and seeing the patchwork fields of farmland below, reminding me that there’s a quieter life out there if it’s wanted. Or the twisting snakes and clusters of glowing light that mark the cities, a gesture of defiance from civilization against the encroaching darkness.
I like seeing the diverse people who climb into a giant metal tube, trusting other humans to get them across the globe. It all comes together to bring sonder to the forefront of my mind — the realization that each passerby has a life as complex and vivid as my own.
We Americans have found ourselves victims of algorithms and echo chambers. They’ve grouped us into simplistic groups and told us the other groups aren’t worthy of our time. I want to know the truth of these things. What does the rest of the world think of us, or does it even care?
At a time when the globalist view of politics and trade is under attack, when the US abdicates its position as Guardian of Liberty and Beacon of Justice, I find it more and more important to find a perspective from outside of our borders.
In the words of American psychologist Carl Rogers, “The way of being with another person which is termed empathic…means temporarily living in their life, moving about in it delicately without making judgment… to be with another in this way means that for the time being you lay aside the views and values you hold for yourself in order to enter the other’s world without prejudice…a complex, demanding, strong yet subtle and gentle way of being.”
The Impossibility of Returning
My mom had argued that you can’t run from your past. The harder it was, the more you need to face it. My grandparents, Frodo, and others reminded me that you can never go home again. After a decade away, I had been back in my family home for a little over a year. The spectres of the past battered my psyche and the realities of my present squeezed in from all sides. It was an ill-fitting garment from the past. I know now that you can confront your past without living there.
You can never go home again, not as you were, not as it was. But maybe that’s the point — you aren’t meant to.
Works Cited
Amnesty International. “Global Human Rights Report 2018–2019.” Amnesty International Publications, 2019.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Polity Press, 2000.
Behar, Ruth. The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart. Beacon Press, 1996.
Economic Policy Institute. “Tax Cut Impact Report.” EPI Research, 2018.
Freedom House. “Freedom in the World 2023 Report.” Freedom House, 2023.
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. “Global State of Democracy Report.” IDEA Publications, 2023.
Pew Research Center. “Political Polarization and Community Dynamics Study.” Pew Research, 2023.
Southern Border Communities Coalition. “Border Abuse Report.” SBCC Publications, 2019.
Southern Poverty Law Center. “Hate in America Report.” SPLC Research, 2019.
The Economist Intelligence Unit. “Democracy Index 2023.” The Economist, 2023.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “Migrant Rights and Family Separation Report.” UNHCR Publications, 2019.
Urban Institute. “Healthcare Coverage Analysis.” Urban Institute Research, 2020.
“Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” The White House, 25 Mar. 2025, www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/preserving-and-protecting-the-integrity-of-american-elections/.