Can You Go Home Again?

In a few days I get a chance to go home.

Well, not home really, at least anymore. But for almost 16 years it was home, and when we left that home, we didn’t plan to not go back.

I am going back for a visit, and I need to ask:

Can you go home again?

I have written a few times about why we decided to stay in Texas.  We don’t regret the decision.

But with the opportunity for this visit back to Taiwan, I am wondering what my emotions will be like.  I haven’t been back.  Haven’t seen the sights, smelled the smells, heard the sounds for 6 years.

Am I ready?

When you go home, you go to a place that still feels very familiar.  I have friends from college days with whom it always feels as if there haven’t been years since I’ve seen them or decades since we were in college.

Is going home to a place you didn’t anticipate leaving like that?  Is it like riding a bike?

Thomas Wolfe’s book, You Can’t Go Home Again was published posthumously. He certainly believe it wasn’t possible to return home (at least unchanged). He may be right.

I know that going back to Taiwan will be a journey filled with mixed emotions.

I loved that busy city far more than I would have ever imagined, but not always.  The first two years Linda and I lived there we were almost convinced we were living on another planet.

But by 2006, we were very much at home there.  So much so I remember thinking I could retire there.  Of course, we didn’t know in early 2006 that our living there was about to draw to a close.

So, I’m headed back to Taipei for a visit.  I’ll let you know how it went!

Tagged as: Taipei, Taiwan

by Thad on June 22, 2012 · 10 comments

tagged as Taipei, Taiwan in life