give it back

It clicked! I love when that happens! yep, no better feeling...i usually couldn't tell you at what specific moments the meanings of things click for me but this morning on my drive into work, i absolutely can. as most know by now, i can't go anywhere without my music on, usually too loud. this morning was no different. i had been up for a good solid 2 hours with an incredibly sweaty workout behind me and was heading into work a bit early (perfect timing for a stop at Starbucks) when i sat at a light prior to turning left onto the highway. and then... it clicked. I was already a minute and three seconds into the song but at that moment, with the sun in my eyes and the windows down, i had to start it over.

Eric Church's "Give Me Back My Hometown" is a pretty catchy song. that's probably why for first 900 times I had listened to it as either background music, a pre-game jam or just time filler on the treadmill it made no difference, but this morning... something was very different. so for what it's worth, i encourage you to take a listen... closely. try your damnedest to make it relate-able. i guess for me this morning...it was just that.

"You can have my grandma's locket
The knife out of my grandpa's pocket
Yeah my state champion jacket
I don't care you can have it
Every made memory
Every picture, every broken dream
Yeah everything, everything, everything

Give me back my hometown
'Cause this is my hometown
Yeah, yeah, ooohh, yeah, yeah"

there's something about a hometown. you feel like you own it, you run the town. you're the guy or girl that calls the shots and knows every nook and cranny through the streets. the place makes you proud to be part of it's history. you know where the cops sit, where the best places to catch a sunrise are and you know what roads to run on better than anybody. and honestly, that's just the beginning.

it's yours, right?

but see, that's not necessarily what makes it a home and to be honest, that's why when someones says to "give it back" it can mean pretty powerful stuff. for me, i look at a few places as "home". Perkasie for sure, Columbia without a doubt and well, Roanoke. but i get it...all of those aren't really "mine"... they are places full of memories and yet that's what pulls on the heart strings... that's what makes them a home. so for a song like "give me back my hometown", it speaks volumes.

i think that at any moment, your "hometown" can change. people come and go and can leave a mark on what you thought was yours, therefore tarnishing what you may have thought you had. and as a matter of fact, it gets into your bones and how to shake it, i haven't found just yet. i think the way you look at your hometown changes based on the relationships you build and the memories you make. sometimes when real life love or laughter or even heartbreaks happen, it makes the coffee shops taste different, the street lights invoke those "a different place and time" thoughts, the big bright lights at the hometown football field look a bit dimmer, and the back roads you called 'home' remind you of the flood of memories that you may have made right in those same spots previously. i think that's why i love going back to south carolina... the way five points looks before 7am, or how the dew on the lawns along my run route in perkasie are unlike any other, and as for roanoke, i compare every single cup of coffee i drink to the ones i enjoyed at CUPS. I have made memories in other peoples' actual "hometowns" and that for some, like that from the point of view in this song, doesn't sit too well with others.

However, the question i have is can the memories you keep of a place you call home, truly be stolen? Does what you think is yours, not actually belong to them as well?

so perhaps for me, that is what is exciting about experience new cities and states... there are no memories yet. neither good, gutsy, bold or bad. there's nothing that ties you to a specific time which in your mind, can stand still forever. and perhaps for others, a line like "you're in every scene" is what makes a song like 'give me back my hometown' reign so true.