Homesick

Two decent public high schools, a one street downtown featuring a drive-through dairy, and a decent sized shopping mall is pretty much all what Pleasanton consists of. Growing up I could walk down any street, at any time, at any age, and feel perfectly safe. You can’t leave your house without running into someone you know. Everyone knows everything about everyone.

Most of my childhood friends couldn’t wait to get out of this boring town and vowed to “never end up like our parents.” I agreed with them until I moved to Los Angeles for school. There are just some things about my town that a big city can’t offer.

Every year the last week of June and the first week of July, my town holds the Alameda County Fair. I know that you probably just set my town in the middle of the boondocks with farmers and tractors, but we are only 45 minutes from San Francisco. Trust me, it ain’t any Hannah Montana movie. Anyways, this fair is the highlight of my childhood and I still make it a point to go. Held since 1912, it seems as if the same rickety rides are there year after year filled with screaming kids. The same greasy food smell wafting in the air covers the entire fairgrounds and in the few buildings displaying the quilts and jams and jewelry old ladies make in their leisure time. Although the little kids have replaced the older, the layout and the machines are still the same. Living in a city like Los Angeles that is continually changing and modernizing makes it that much more comforting to go home where I know where everything is and restaurants know my order and friends never fully drift apart.

Easter break I found myself one night in a high school classmate of mine’s house surrounded by other people I had graduated with. We caught up with each other and the general overview of our lives at this point. We talked about other people we graduated with who are now engaged, having kids, or getting “adult” jobs. Amidst our conversation, my friend Sara said, “I’m trying to get away from here as fast as possible. I want to experience something else. But eventually I do want to come back. The town is my family.”

Many people do eventually come back and settle with their new families near or in Pleasanton. Including all three of my sisters. My oldest also went to Loyola Marymount. My second sister went to Sacramento. My last wandered around for a bit. But they all came back as soon as they began their families. According to the Bay Area Census, more than 10,000 people have migrated to the little town within the past 17 years.  

Growing up this way has created a deeper homesickness than I usually see in other people. Although, University of Warwick states that up to 70% of Freshmen experience homesickness. For me it’s not completely satisfying when someone visits me down here. My heart yearns for the ability to get lost in the acres of uninhabited grass hills next to my house and take in the fresh air. To be able to go so far away that you can’t hear any cars or sirens or music, just chirping birds, moo-ing cows and the rustling wind.

 No one from the city could truly understand.