Nostalgia, West Chester and Growing Up

The word of the day is "home" so let's see where my mind goes with this! When I think of home I think of Cincinnati. More specifically, I think of West Chester, a suburb on the north side of Cincy. West Chester is not an exciting place to live at all. The most exciting and noteworthy thing we have in West Chester is IKEA. Other than that... nothing. A Friday night in West Chester or, the Dub-C as some might call it, would be going to a movie at the Rave (not owned by AMC but everyone knows it's still a Rave) and then going to eat at one of the dozens of chain resturaunts. (I prefer Dingle House Pub)

Aside from the lack of variety, I love West Chester and will always have a place for it in my heart. I lived at 5430 Fallen Timbers Dr. (this is why I named by blog Fallen Timbers btw.) for the first 21 years of my life. 21 of the 22 years I've been breathing were spent living in that house. It was a beautiful house with one of the coolest pools around. I was extremely fortunate to have lived in such a wonderful place. Even friends of mine would go on and one about how loving, peaceful and home-like my hosue always felt. The vast majority of my childhood memories took place at that address. My childhood was perfect. There is nothing I would have changed about it. So when I think of "the good old days" I think about that home.

I moved downtown to Price Hill for my 4 years in college and for the first time in my life, I was living away from home. During my freshman year, my parents split up and from that point on nothing was the same. I felt like everything I knew growing up was taken away from me and I wasn't ready to let it go. When things would get tough at school or dealing with the divorce, I would go back to West Chester and to the old Fallen Timbers to try and feel secure again and to be at home but nothing was ever the same. The streets that I once ruled as a teenager no longer had the glow and pride they once had. My home no longer felt warm and loving. West Chester became a town and 5430 Fallen Timbers became a house.

I became extremely nostalgic as a tired to hold on to that part of my life when things were still good but I couldn't make it work. I wanted more than anything to be back home and away from all crap that life in college had brought but I could never get back there.

There comes a time in our lives where we go home and everything feels different. It all looks the same but it definately doesn't feel the same. We think something there has changed but then we realize that the only thing that has really changed is us. Those places weren't home anymore becasue I wasn't the 18 year old, newly graduated, ready to conquer the world Parker Sims that I once was. I had built a new life in Cincinati while my old life was being torn down by my parents divorce.

So what is a home? I would say that a home is wherever you are most celebrated and loved in life. You can spend a lot of time somewhere and just be tolerated by the people around you. A home is where you are loved and where there are people that cherish you for you who are. West Chester was that for me until things with my parents started going down and I found a new group of people that celebrated me in Cincinnati. Now I'm graduated and going through a new time in life. I left a place that was my home for 4 years and I'm searching for my next one.