Home, Again & Again & Again
September 29th, 2025
Photo: Bizzy Webb
Writer: Claudia Hurst
Editor: Emily Cavero
Home has been something I have thought a lot about in the past year of my life, as my place in the world has frequently changed – from Ann Arbor, to studying abroad in Madrid, to interning in Washington, D.C., and returning to my hometown in Dallas. I feel lucky to have lived in four different cities in the past year of my life, but the constant impermanence of my physical location has forced me to consider how my relationship with places changes as I grow.
The word home was always a vision of my childhood: a red brick house with elementary school artwork decorating the walls and snowglobes lining the shelves. Beagles meeting you at the door when you get home from school, and family dinner each night with different exhaustive responses to, “How was your day?”. I remember how difficult it felt to imagine a sense of belonging far away from this place. But in time, I found home in Ann Arbor, too.
This home looks a little different. There are no beagles and epic snowglobe collections, but there is a fridge covered with notes written on old Guest Checks and a karaoke microphone religiously used for singing and storytelling. Dinner table laughter and stories from the day remain a focal part of my day; family dinners are now shared with my five roommates.
Returning to my childhood home after spending a semester overseas was the first time I did not feel a sense of belonging to my red brick roots. Thomas Wolfe’s quote, “You can’t go home again,” rang in my ears. The message home doesn’t change, but you do. I sat with this thought the whole summer, attempting to justify why I felt out of place in a space that was once so familiar. I didn’t know where I belonged anymore, and I felt sad for the 18-year-old version of myself who was terrified to leave because she didn’t want anything to change.
I recently reconnected with Where the Wild Things Are for a class assignment. I was reminded of the beauty in children’s literature’s ability to convey complex topics in a simplified manner. While I do not fall into the target audience: 4-8 year olds, the clarity of its themes resonated with me – the assurance that even if you’re gone for a long time, and even if you mess up, you can always find your way back home.
Train sings a similar message in the bridge of “Drops of Jupiter”, my go-to karaoke song. However far we may go, it’s the simple things that only exist in this universe that will bring us back. “Can you imagine no first dance, freeze-dried romance; five-hour phone conversation; the best soy latte that you ever had, and me?” As much as we change and grow, discover our path and lose our way again, there is a sense of comfort knowing that we can always return.
As we prepare to embark on the rest of our lives after graduation, I am confident we will all find home in many different places in our lifetime, and fondly remember the home we have created here in Ann Arbor. I now recognize that this sense of belonging is not tied to the physical location or the things that fill that space. The essence of home is love, and that doesn’t change, even as we do.
You can always go home again.
