Hometown Appreciation

Photo credit: Charlie Rogers

During my senior year of high school, when I had to sift through college mail and make a list of what schools I wanted to visit, there was only one qualification that felt necessary to me.

It had to be out of state.

I have lived in the same city, the same house, for practically all of my life. From preschool to eighth grade, I went to the same Catholic grade school. I attended an all-girls Catholic school that a lot of my grade school classmates attended.

I worked in Aurora, I studied in Aurora, I worshipped in Aurora. It felt like my life completely hinged on this town, and I saw it through sepia-tinted glasses. Downtown was cramped and small, and I could see the same bank and garish KFC from my bedroom window.

Leaving my home for college was the only possibility for me.

Originally, I had hopes of abandoning suburbia for New York City, and I even applied to a school out there. But in the end, staying in the Midwest made the most sense, so I made sure that I at least wouldn’t end up in Illinois.

Grand Rapids felt like a better, shinier version of my hometown. Downtown was tall and gleaming instead of the old brick buildings that peppered the view from the third floor of my local library.

I spent my undergraduate years exploring coffee shops and taking in the city’s breathtakingly beautiful autumns. When I returned to Grand Rapids after winter or summer break, it never got old to see the downtown skyline come into view as I turned a bend on I-196.

Three and a half hours from Aurora stretched into thousands of miles when I spent a semester in Liverpool.

While Aurora felt old and crumbling to me, Liverpool made the city look like an infant. Buildings that looked centuries old now contained Domino’s and grocery stores. The old and modern mingled in a way that made sense to me. Liverpool’s sleek city center was only a few miles down Lark Lane, a historic street filled with shops and restaurants inside buildings that I’m sure were filled with centuries of stories.

I traveled to different countries, marveled at the vibrant buildings that surrounded me as I explored the packed streets of Nice, France. I sat in awe, a speck against the towering Alps and glittering blue water in Switzerland.

Then I went back home, eager to return to Grand Rapids once summer came to a close. More downtown adventures, late-night trips with housemates, and a spontaneous beach trip on a cool April night.

But then graduation came and with no full-time job, I returned home.

I’ve been living in my hometown for over a year, and now that I’ve finally secured a full-time job, I’m probably not leaving any time soon.

Returning home felt suffocating at times, especially when job searching kept returning to rejections and ignored applications.

But this time, I found myself exploring my city more than ever before. I walked around the historic downtown area with my best friend, lamenting with him over the old post office building that became an iconic children’s museum that was now abandoned. We talked about the strange fountain comprised of three shifting pillars that get knocked out of commission every once in a while.

In the booths of an Irish pub, I fell into unhinged conversations with my two best friends, the three of us laughing two loud on a slow weekday night.

I’ve lived here for the better part of my twenty-three years, but I’m only just now exploring places I’ve driven past hundreds of times. A few weeks ago, I went inside a bagel place that’s an Aurora staple, having the best asiago bagel of my life.

The city murals, the light blue plume that catches my eye whenever I look down at downtown’s historical brick buildings, the way our local theater’s lights cast liquid gold on the water at night, all of these things and so much more, from the sunsets outside my window to the music from local concerts that float into my garage, all of this registers as beautiful to me.

Driving to my favorite coffee shop or walking downtown doesn’t make me wish to fly past the city borders. Instead, I’ve noticed the way I swell with pride as I walk through the downtown farmer’s market, as I applaud another amazing performance put on by the theater.

There’s a reason “distance makes the heart grow fonder” is such a popular saying; many people have experienced the phenomenon of falling in love with a person, object, or place after a long time apart.

Distance did not only make me grow fonder of my hometown, but it allowed me to see the many ways in which it parallels with the new places I’ve explored. And I didn’t just fall back into love with my home. It was at local restaurants, on downtown streets and in local coffee shops that I spent hours of time reconnecting with my best friends, who unlike me, stayed in Illinois for college.

I reinserted myself into inside jokes, and saw the beauty of Aurora from their eyes. Having heated conversations about nothing or revisiting years-old events felt more comforting in sticky vinyl booths that overlooked the Fox River.

Life does feel bittersweet when I think of the friends I met in college, people I still love deeply, scattered across the country. Something light bubbles within me whenever I’m finally able to call one of my Calvin friends and easily slip into a familiar banter.

But on nights when I’m walking on the downtown bridge between my two best friends, giggling about a meme that makes no sense to anyone else, the warm feeling of comfort is more than enough to remind me that I’m home.