The challenge of going home is not just that things will be different. It’s that things will feel different.

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Home is familiar. But that isn’t what attracts us to it.

It is the connection. That sense of connection we have to a place, a people, an environment. Buildings or trees. Lakes or roads. We feel connected to this thing we call home.

Home can be a town or a house or a family. It can also be a church or a bar or a coffee shop. It really can be anything. As long as there is a connection and deep longing.

When we say that “you can never go home again,” what we’re trying to say is that home is never like we remember it. Our connection to home can’t go back to what it was.

Knowing this, however, can make it easier when we try. Acknowledging that home, like us, has grown since we last saw each other.