You can't go home again

Heidi and I went down to Chattanooga to see my aunt and a cousin and my brother. My uncle would have been there, but this was his last opportunity to go visit my other cousin, who's in the Navy, and go onboard a Nimitz class aircraft carrier, so he missed out. Anyway, in the 15 years they lived there, Chattanooga has bloomed into quite the stunning little city. They have a world-class aquarium (actually, two now), a beautiful riverfront, and, to top it all off, we got the best service I've ever gotten at an oil-change place (if anybody near Chattanooga is reading this, I can't remember the name of the place, but it's on 127 right near the base of Signal Mountain, and it's brand new; they're clean and they're exceptionally friendly and they have fantastic specials...highly recommended).

Here's the point of this post though: As we were coming back up, we stopped in West Lafayette, IN, to see Purdue. It would have been a trip down memory lane, but everything had changed. Very little was the same. I got all bummed that my life seems to not have progressed very much (professionally anyway), but Purdue has changed dramatically. But I was quite pleased that in the same timeframe, Chattanooga has developed. Why? Partially because Purdue was my home for 5 years, partially because I don't feel as though I have changed as much as the town has. Hmmm. It's a bugger, and one that I just need to get over. Change happens, and this year will change a lot. Why do I feel like I need to hold onto the "old Purdue?" I really didn't like the school or the town all that much, and the bulk of the changes appeared to be positive, much like the bulk of the changes to Chattanooga.

It helps to just write about it. I guess part of me is grieving the change of the old garbage that I didn't particularly care about, and I wan't able to share that with Heidi.