She was going home.
College and grown-up life had kept her away for more than seven years. She called her parents every Sunday, and stayed in contact with a few high school friends who never moved away, but it wasn’t the same.
She missed the late nights cruising main street with her girls, Friday home games when the whole town came out to cheer on their Red Raiders, and hot, summer Saturdays at Tyler’s creek, skinny dipping with Chase.
Living in the city, she felt disconnected and alone. She had made a few friends, but it wasn’t like the bonds she had with the people she grew up knowing.
As soon as she turned off the highway, she felt something was very wrong. The familiar grain silos and open fields dotted with red Guernsey cows were gone. In their place were asphalt parking lots and strip centers full of pizza parlors and hair salons.
The flashing red light at the intersection in the middle of town was now a full, four-way traffic tree with merge lanes and turn arrows.
When her constant rubbernecking almost caused her to rear-end a Honda Civic at Parris Boulevard and 18th Street, it was time to pull over and get her bearings.
Despite the growling of her empty stomach, she couldn’t bring herself to go through the drive-thru of the Zaxby’s that wasn’t there when she left. It was sacrilegious to have a fast food restaurant peddling prefab chicken when Miss Pearl fried up the best drumsticks in the four-county region.
She began to worry that maybe after driving all night, she took the wrong exit, and she wasn’t in Collierville after all. Pulling into a parking spot at the back of the restaurant lot, she called her dad.
“Hey, Punkin’! You almost here?”
His cheeriness only made her agitation worse. Near tears, she confessed that she was lost. After giving him a description of where she was, he tried to let her down easy.
“Sweetheart, did you really expect time to stand still?”
“Yes, Dad, I did! I don’t recognize anything. My hometown has disappeared. You told me a few things were different, but nothing is the same. It’s like being stranded in a foreign country, and not knowing anyone.”
“Different isn’t wrong, Punkin’, it’s just different. Give it a chance. I’ll come meet you and we can have lunch.”
“Is Miss Pearl still around?”
“She sure is and she’d love to see you again.”
“Let’s go there. At least that’s one thing that hasn’t changed. They still have football on Friday nights, don’t they?”
“Homecoming game is tonight.”
“Of course, it is.”
Thin spiral notebook 
Oh, I really like this. I actually experienced this. I returned home after being away for 16 years (my, how time slips by). I actually got lost. All the old landmarks were gone. nothing was the same. My sister gave me a hard time for getting disoriented. Such things can really happen. You captured this experience very well.
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I’ve never really left like this, but my mom did. It’s strange to go back to her hometown, to see what’s remained the same and what is so very different. This feels so authentic, and the photo is fantastic.
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nice snapshot, Tara… slice of life, truthy and real. i LOVE that photo, too. love it! someone (you!) should do a photo essay about notary signs. that would be fascinating, a real piece of Americana.
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The story is relatable in content, and the words you used really bring it home. I am transported into the car with the protagonist and feel as lost as she does. I know the feeling, as I’m sure so many others do. Wonderfully written with a little typo: “Living in the city, she felt disconnect[ed] and alone.”
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I can relate to this, having been away from my home town for 8 years. Although I visited often, when I moved back permanently, I wasn’t prepared for my ‘short cuts’ to be blocked by high rise flats, country walks being blocked by fences, gates, and with restricted access, and the place I used to work flattened and replaced by a industrial park. Sadly, this is what they call progress.
Good post.
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I can really relate to this, going back after twenty years when my mother was ill. The details are different but the sense of losing your past is the same whether in Collierville or in Cheshire, UK. It was evocative and I think hit a universal truth. LM x
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Home is never quite the same as how we left it. I enjoyed her confusion and how she refused to believe what she was seeing. The conversation with her dad was sweet. She’ll be okay. 🙂
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Enjoy reading your posts. You’ve got a great ‘snap’ with your words; drawing us the mental landscape without weighty lengthy sentences.
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Going back to an incredibly familiar place, a place that is imprinted on your brain, after many years away can be really disorienting. You certainly capture that in this piece. Did I get off at the wrong exit? Liked it a lot.
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This was so southern I could feel the grit of the sweet tea sugar in my teeth as I read it.
It’s also relatable. The next phase in her life after she heads home. Been there.
well written
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