Lost and Found; The Beauty of Home

by Carlye Mahler (she/her)

Early on it’s easy to feel trapped in your hometown and dream about leaving. Looking at people teaching at their old high schools, they seem like the worst case-scenario. So you drive, you fly, far away as soon as you can.

You make exciting friends, they have experiences that you’ve never had and you grow as a person just by knowing them. You cut your hair, eat new foods, and pretend to know what Foucault was talking about. Peers accept you as a unique equal.

You find yourself playfully defending your hometown grocery store in conversation. “Obviously Publix is better than Kroger.” You think back to the cartoonish dinosaur and the free cookies you politely asked the bakery workers for.

“We don’t have sweet iced tea, I can bring unsweet tea and you can use the sugar packets on the table.” How dumb is that? When I’m at home there’s sweet tea everywhere. I realize now that none of my friends even think to order sweet tea; it sets me apart.

The sugar won’t mix into the iced tea, it settles into a layer of sugar on the bottom. The sweet flavor rushes immediately through the straw only to be substituted for the watery tea flavor. The sugar comes in an immediate wave before fading.

How did you be new burden on you hometown, but you desperately swirl m