You CAN Go Home Again

The past year has been, well, how would you fill in the blank?

It's been a moment, as the Millennials like to say.

The thing is, the clock is ticking.

There never will be a “right” time, and we'll never have more time than we have right now, to get clear about what matters and to bring more of it into our life.

What is one thing you could put on your calendar you would look forward to?

It doesn't have to be a big thing, just one thing that would perk you up just thinking about it.

One thing that put the light on in my eyes was to revisit the town where I grew up.

I was visiting my sister in California, and realized I had not been back to New Cuyama, a small mountain valley that sits in a triangle between Taft, Ojai and Santa Maria.

I thought, “There’s no present like the time” and decided to take a trip down Memory Lane.

Have people told you how tiny everything in your hometown looks when you return?

Well, it's true.

The C & H store (which loyally bought our 4-H animals at the Santa Maria Fair every year) seemed so far away when we walked there to get our summer "treat meal" of chicken noodle soup, a small bag of Fritos, a can of root beer, and a Baby Ruth bar. All for under our $1 a day allowance. I clocked the distance, this time and couldn't believe it was only a half mile from our house. Really?!

There was the high school (104 students) where I learned to play tennis by hitting thousands of balls against the backboard. Where our teacher Mr. Adams shaped some talent-shy kids into a decent jazz band. Where Cheri played Stranger on the Shore on her clarinet and saxophone and we rocked String of Pearls and Glenn Miller’s In The Mood.

There's the shop where Dad, the ag teacher and FFA advisor, taught welding and built a 4-horse stock trailer from scratch. The football field where our six man football team played a version of “Friday Nigh Lights." The rec center where our community gathered for Halloween carnivals, cake walks, Barbershop shows, roller skating parties, pit bar-b-ques.

Aahh, the library where I used to ride my horse Joe (who had two speeds, a trot and an all-out run. He never, ever walked.) I'd tie him up outside while I went in to see if they had any new (I hope, I hope) Black Stallion books.

I sighed when I saw the elementary school auditorium where I gave my first public speech. I was the 8th-grade valedictorian, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but it was to 13 year old me in our small town. The night of graduation, our librarian Mr. Bowers pulled me aside and gifted me with a pen and ink drawing of a mustang and told me that's what I was.

Our tiny home on Cebrian Street is holding up pretty well for being 70 years old. I laughed out loud as a tumbleweed blew across the road. We spent hundreds of hours building tumbleweed forts by the side of our house and playing with our Barbie dolls (really!).

I remembered the chickens fly-running and squawking around the corner whenever we opened our back door, no matter how quietly we turned the knob.

I remembered asking Mom on freezing winter nights if I HAD to feed the rabbits, “It's so cold. Can't I do it in the morning?” and her saying what she always said when we tried to squeak out of responsibilities, “Do the right thing.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick said, "Teachers affect eternity. Who knows where their influence will end?" I am forever grateful to my parents and those small-town teachers, 4-H leaders and librarians who instilled values, adventure and a love of learning in me.

How about you? How long has it been since you've been back to your hometown?

What insights could you gain from taking a trip down Memory Lane?

Buddha said, “The problem is, you think you have time.”

Please understand, there’s no present like the time – and no time like the present – to reconnect with what brought you here. There's nothing like going home again to pay homage to the influences who have made you who you are. Go.

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Sam Horn, CEO of the Intrigue Agency, is on a mission to help people create the life, work, relationships of their dreams. Her 3 TEDx talks and9 books have been featured in NY Times, on NPR, and presented to Intel, YPO, Capital One, Cisco, NASA. Want more ways to turn SOMEDAY's into TODAY's? Join Sam's free twice-monthly CLARITY CALLS.