Home

We’ve spent the last two nights in Fort Worth, Texas.  We stay with my mother when we’re down here, very near the neighborhood where I grew up. We come down to Fort Worth about once a year as we normally visit our lake house a few hours away to see my family. I left Fort Worth in 2001 to move down to Austin for business school; having lived here for the first 27 years of my life. Yet, it still surprises me the sense of nostalgia I get when visiting this town.

I drove by the house where I grew up, the middle school, the railroad tracks, the best friends house. I spent time on TCU’s campus for a meeting. I had lunch at an old haunt in downtown and ordered the same fajitas. Visited some friends in my first office building (which still smells the same). Drove through the now-gentrified neighborhood south of downtown where we used to go eat lunch at the Paris coffee shop. It was funny to have a meeting at a fancy wine-bar there now. Later this morning, I’m seeing a friend and mentor that originally hired me at KPMG for my first “real” job. I’m bringing my girls over to fish on their pond. I’ll see old friends tonight at the TCU vs UT football game and spend time with my parent’s friends that have known me since the beginning.

Fort Worth remains home for me. The place I’m from. That doesn’t mean I don’t love living in Boulder. That doesn’t mean I think Fort Worth is a better place to live or I don’t miss Austin. I don’t have to love one more than the other, they aren’t mutually exclusive. Home is more of a concept, a sense of familiarity, a sense of belonging, much more than a place.

It’s good to be home.  I’ll be wearing purple tonight at the TCU game, cheering for a football team but perhaps I’ll really be cheering being home.