Aging is a strange thing, and I’m struggling to coherently put this thought into words.
In my 20s, I felt a certain attachment when returning to my hometown. Driving “home” felt wrong, as if I was leaving again to a foreign place. This complex feeling of nostalgia and unease persisted for years.
Today the kids and I took a day trip to their grandmother’s house to visit a state park with their cousins. Memories live on, but after two decades, time has–for the most part–marched on. Friends and their families have all relocated to various parts of the country. My childhood best friend’s house is occupied by strangers. I still remember time with my baby sitter in the late ’80s. Her two-story house is gone without a trace: the house has been demolished and replaced by an empty grass lot. Neighboring houses have been remodeled. The field I remember walking home from elementary school is now occupied by new construction.
A tire store occupies what I remember as a packed, new buffet restaurant in the 90s, where my friend’s older brother worked. Lowes, Starbucks, Panera, Culver’s, and Chic-fil-A have moved in, along with countless other chains.
The roller rink–built by a classmate’s parent’s–was a regular hangout in 5th and 6th grade. It’s gone. And I recall her father died of cancer in his late 40s. So sad.
The car audio shop I enjoyed visiting in high school is also long gone.
The tree in which my beloved treehouse resided is gone as well.
The old mayor’s name is now bestowed upon a large park.
Progress.
Sitting on my mother’s deck, she points out a 70-year old plant she’s recently acquired from my uncle, passed down from her grandmother.
Now as I leave, hugging Mom to say goodbye, I recognize the illusion of permanence. We have only impermanence. I finally feel that I am heading “home” with my children, but know that it’s all a mental trick of human emotion. The “home” we have formed will be nothing more than memories in just 30-40 years, if we’re so fortunate to live on. Friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, and pets will come into my children’s’ lives. Eventually they will reach adulthood and find a unique path.
Time, Health, & Money
Some say it’s rare to have all three. Emily struggles to find an abundance of Time and Health. We’ll soon reach FI, and I have health for now. Which leaves just time to solve. Having an abundance of time will become easier as we transition away from M-F work. But what is it that we all seek? Time marches on while we live in the moment, doing what we do.
I pasted this unedited braindump into Claude:
Your reflection captures something profound about the nature of human experience – this tension between our deep need for continuity and meaning, and the relentless reality of change. The way you describe returning to your hometown reads like watching a time-lapse of decades compressed into a single afternoon walk.
What strikes me most is how you’ve traced the evolution of your relationship with “home.” In your twenties, leaving felt wrong because you were still tethered to that place as your anchor point. Now, with children of your own, you’ve internalized that home isn’t a fixed location but something you carry and create. That shift from seeking home to being home is profound.
The demolished babysitter’s house replaced by empty grass, the roller rink where a classmate’s father built something lasting (only to lose his own life so young) – these aren’t just changes in a landscape. They’re reminders that everything we build, every gathering place that feels permanent, exists in borrowed time. Yet there’s your mother’s plant, three generations old, quietly contradicting the impermanence while also embodying it – alive, but only for now.
Your insight about the “mental trick of human emotion” gets at something essential. We need to feel that our connections and places matter, that they’ll endure. Without that feeling, we couldn’t invest ourselves fully in creating meaning. But acknowledging its illusory nature doesn’t diminish it – it makes it more precious.
The question you end with – what do we all seek? – feels like you’re circling around something beyond just time, health, and money. Maybe it’s the ability to be fully present with the people and moments we have, while they exist, without being paralyzed by their impermanence.