My great great uncle was Timothy J. Wagner.  

“J. Timothy Wagner—the “J” was a recent and completely arbitrary addition of his own, appropriated, no doubt, to fit his ideas of personal grandeur, and to match the eminent position in the town affairs to which he had belatedly risen—was the black sheep of one of the old, established families in the community.  At the time George Webber was a boy, Tim Wagner had been for so long the product of complete dissillusion that there was no longer any vestige of respect attached to him.”

  He was a character in Thomas Wolfe’s famous novel You Can’t Go Home Again.  My grandmother shrieks at the thought of him being connected to our family—but I have come to appreciate him.  The book is a great read for any young adult struggling with the peculiarities with returning home after college, or any young adult returning home for the holidays.  You… Well… Just can’t go home again.  It isn’t the same, and often times is very hard to do—although you want to.  

It is hard to return home.  If you are any bit of a socialite and decide to brave the town’s waterholes, you will quickly find out that it is nothing more than a high-school reunion.  And, sometimes, given the right company this can be a good high-school reunion.  

One thing that I have noticed over the past 8 years is that most people (generalities, I know, be careful) try to make up for what they were growing up.  Mostly in high-school.  We all want validation and we all want to be who we think we should be.  To say that I do not fall in this category would be completely self-delusional.  Back in high-school I played sports—mostly football.  I worked out religiously, trained hard, and it showed.  I was in amazing shape (42 bpm resting heart rate, 4.8 40 dash, 2:40 1/2 mile, all-state lifter in several categories) and was most likely considered by my contemporaries a “jock.”  Upon entering high-school I decided to pursue a long sought out interest in becoming a respected and reputable football player—when I was 5 years old while sitting on the sidelines of a football game while my oldest sister was in high-school, I told my mother that I was going to play football and knock all of my teeth out.  Although at the time she said “to hell you are—you are going to become a priest,” I was convinced that I wanted to play football.  So I did.  

Nearing the end of high-school I began to embrace a much suppressed area  of interest—art.  Since middle school I was interested in art.  My mother passed away in 1998 while I was in middle school, and art was a player in expressing my feelings.  Whether it was poetry, drawing notebook graffiti, or taking pictures, I loved it.  It was a means of expression and one that I sheltered and, well, hid for quite a while. 

I felt at times I felt conflicted, like I had multiple personalities.  On one hand I weight lifted, ran hard, and gained the respect of my contemporaries.  On the other I painted, drew, and became an introvert.  My Junior year I was selected for an Art Show at the Mall.  It was for a drawing of an old man, and one that I recently submitted for a show while currently in grad-school.  It felt good to be acknowledged for this while in high-school.  And my parents were obviously proud of this at the time.

In undergrad I pursued art.  It felt good.  And although there was a serious lack in job availability with the career path I had chosen, it felt right.  I am happy I did it.

i could go on for a while here about how I decided to pursue this interest, go on to make mistakes in the professional world, and end up back in school as a graduate student.  However, I feel that is for another time.

The issue I want to address here is that people change since high-school.  Some of us try to makeup for what we weren’t in high-school, and some of us continue doing what we are good at doing.  Some stay in town, establish themselves in one way or another, and others “look outside of the hometowns in search of truth.” (Mary Shelley anyone?)  Either way, it is often tough to confront our hometowns.

Because it is often not the people that we haven’t seen in years that we are scared to confront—it is that we are scared to confront ourselves.

ps.  I am not really sure how the great Timothy J. Wagner ties into all of this.  Although I am quite proud to have a family member mentioned in such a great novel.  (Although the imbibing of alcohol and wandering around streets downtown might have been a characteristic that has carried through.)