There's No Place
Like 'Home'

I received a number of emails from readers last week wanting the answer to a simple question: Why?

Why would my wife, Amy, and I consider moving overseas, given that just a few years ago we relocated to South Louisiana, a move that we expected to be our last? This is the place we both grew up...and we were home.

The long answer is: Life changes -- often in ways you don't expect. And sometimes those changes make you re-evaluate what you're doing, where you're doing it and what you want out of the rest of your life.

But the short answer is this: You really can't go home again.

* * *

To be sure, there are a lot of reasons for our change of heart, especially for Amy.

For one thing, if we moved overseas, she wouldn't work. That would give her more time with the kids, particularly our daughter, who has special speech needs. Also, she is less worried these days about what daily life would be like abroad. When we adopted our daughter in 2004, we spent more than three weeks in China, shopping local markets, walking to the laundry, eating where the locals do. She realized she's capable of managing fine as an expat.

Then there's the biggest reason: Home isn't what it used to be.

People regularly dream of returning to the place where they grew up, where memories of family and friends are strongest, where they came of age. Or they dream of returning to that place where they first made it on their own -- where they had their first job, where they met their future spouse.

What we've learned over the past three years, though, is that home isn't really about the place. It's about a time. And for many people, going home again is an impossible quest to return to a life forged as a kid or a teen or a young adult. It is like one of those dreams where everything looks familiar, but nothing seems right.

In many ways, that's what happened to Amy. Everything she defined as "home" existed in Baton Rouge: lifelong friends, family, career contacts.

But once we got here, we slowly began to realize that while all those things are still here, they aren't the same. Perhaps nothing exemplifies that better than this past holiday season. For as long as I've known Amy, both Thanksgiving and Christmas were huge family soirees at her grandfather's house, replete with parents, grandparents, nephews, nieces, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Her grandfather lives in a nursing home now, his house effectively empty. The holiday gatherings took place at our house this year, scaled down now that family members have other obligations. It was nice, but it punctuated the fact that the time she once knew in our hometown no longer exists.

Amy also imagined our Louisiana life would be slower, because that's how life was when she was here last, or when we visited. But, of course, our life -- and the lives of our friends -- are different than they were 20 years ago. We are all busy with work and kids and soccer games and dance lessons. Our older relatives need our help. To state the obvious: Life is different in your 30s and 40s than it was in your teens or 20s, no matter where you live.

"The Baton Rouge I left is a different world from what we returned to," Amy says. "Friendships have changed. People have moved on. I'm near friends and family, but we're all so busy that we don't really see each other much. When I used to visit, we'd always get together, but I now realize that was just a special event because I was in town. Now that I'm here, there's no reason for the 'special event.' And because our lives are so hectic, it's really easy to just put off getting together."

Perhaps most unsettling to Amy is that she envisioned our kids would know the childhood she and I had growing up in Baton Rouge, when we could ride our bikes all over the city or hang out in the street after dark playing with friends.

"That was really naive," she says. "I thought we'd return to a place where they'd get to do all the same things. I don't know what I was thinking. We can't let our son ride his bike around town like we did, and there's no way I'm letting him run around the streets after dark with his friends."

* * *

As I said last week, there's no guarantee we'll ever move again. But we both realize now that our move to Louisiana may not be our last, after all.

Certainly, Amy adores being near family, and her family has made parts of our life easier. "But I've realized that being away from them isn't so bad," Amy says. "I miss them when we're away, but that's OK. If we move away again, I know I can always come back and spend as much time with them as I generally get to now. That's been a real eye-opener for me."

Home, Amy has learned, isn't necessarily the place you grew up. It's the place where you end up building your own family. And because of that, she's willing to go wherever our family needs to be.

Email your comments to jeff.opdyke@wsj.com.