re: Anyone here that doesn't live in their hometown...

I'm from a very small town in West Central LA. Most of the people I finished high school with left, as did I, to have a chance at a decent life. Not much economic prosperity where in my hometown. That being said, I'm only 3 hours away and I can see my parents on the weekends just about anytime I feel like driving. I do miss the small town feel but enjoy my life in Houston much more.

Hell no. Just went home for a couple days and hung out with a couple of my old friends but there is too much in life to experience to just live and get old around the same people.

I feel guilty as frick every day for the friends that I've had to leave behind. But they made bad choices in life and I had to remove myself from their company.

It really is true that a big part of who you are comes from the people you surround yourself with. If you allow yourself to be surrounded by trash, you will be dragged down into their messiness.

Does this apply to baton rouge

I moved away from home right after hs and when I moved back all my friends are gone. I'm here for my kids and spend most of my time around them. Had my best friend come up to his moms and he stopped by last night. Probably the first time I've seen him in a year, but talk to him often.

When I was gone and in the military it was fun when I was younger, after awhile it seemed like a huge hassle to come back. I live in the same town as my parents, but we usually just do us most of the time. I have a good relationship, but we're just the independent keep to ourselves people. Not always fun, but being parents is what we do

All I want is to move back to Houma, but my kids would lose their freaking minds. As soon as my youngest graduates I'm hauling arse down there.

quote:

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feel guilty and all around shitty leaving my parents and friends for days every time after visiting

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Count me in on that. But I know I’ve made the right decision.

So I grew up in a town of ~35k, family in local politics, and for those & sports reasons I was known by many. It sucked at times because A LOT of shite got back to my parents.

It was awesome when I was able to use family connections to insulate a lot of friends from the law. School Resource officers & former SROs generally would take my word for things figuring I wouldn't be involved it shady stuff (when those got to my parents denial was easy.) I even worked for the city's Rec Dept so I had the master key to parks meeting places. Still don't know how I got away with it so often. Or last day of school my Jr year ended at noon and about 30 of us headed to a city park. Somehow I talked a SRO from another school out of getting within 30' of seeing...park building wide open, not even an attempt to hide beer, and more hidden were the cigs/pot.

Fast forward 25 years. Rec Dept programs don't really exist. My matter key still works at a few older buildings (just had to try it a few years back.) Malls have been leveled and are patches of pavement and wild weeds. School won 3 consecutive FB titles in the late 90s (our class set the bar for the next class to finally get there) but the public school still gets all the glory for winning 3 in the mid 80s. Downtown dead. Everything moved out to the interstate with big box stores killing local stores. I miss it as it was not as it is.

My grandparents live/lived in rural areas of the county. My mom grew up on a farm and as the interstate system was expanding her dad was in charge of county/hwy dept so that's always a sense of pride since we drive on it when visiting the area. My other grandparents built a house between where my grandma grew up and the church my civil war vet great (x3) grandpa helped build the church. It's the family homestead and will always have our family namesake living in it (dad is 68 and my youngest kid is 13...so we're starting to peak at stuff still there.) When we visit it feels great because it's the only place in this world that I truly relax. On the other side my uncle and dipshit liberal cousin have turned their nose on that homestead...160 years of that family name being there will be ending whenever my 90 year old grandmother dies. It's going to be really sad to see a line going back to the ancestors/settlers from Norway who built it ended.

My biggest regret is the friendships I left behind. Family is always there, but the friends have moved on and so have I. I still consider them friends but I didn't have the time to maintain the closeness we had and that sucks for me.

I don't feel guilty because I was younger when we left but I do feel sad because where I grew up is where I feel most comfortable. Plus it's a lot different than Baton Rouge in a lot of ways.