Going home for the holidays, where everything stays the same

Published by Ryan Paugh on November 29th, 2007 in Entrepreneurship, Work/Life | 12 Comments

There's only one thing scarier than change. And that's no change at all. A lesson learned as I visited my hometown in New Jersey this past Thanksgiving.

I couldn't have been more happy to visit home. I spent the majority of my time catching up on the past two months I've been away, and I shared my chaotic life story with my curious family and friends.

I spent a good amount of time with my friend Kevin. He's always been the kind of guy who knows what he wants in life.

Kevin has lived in our hometown for the entire ten years that we've known each other. It's possible that he'll never leave. He likes simplicity and comfort. Part of me has always admired that about him.

On the eve of Thanksgiving the bars were jam-packed with familiar faces. High school friends, now emerging adults, returned home with new lives and new stories.

Some of those people are married, some are in grad school, others haven't even left town at all. But no matter what their tale, I can't help feeling that they're still the same old person I knew back in the day. When you're back in your home town, it doesn't really matter what you do somewhere else.

I made a point to have lunch with my old co-worker, Janet. She was awesome to me when I was in the corporate world – one of my first real-world mentors after graduation.

Over a great Italian meal (something I still can't find in Madison), she filled me in on the office politics. It still amazes me how quickly people come and go. Firings, transfers, promotions – I often wonder how anyone could make a legitimate personal connection in that world.

Still, part of me misses the structure of it all. Nine-to-five isn't all that bad when you consider the ambiguity of time when you're an entrepreneur. But entrepreneurship also has its benefits…

One of the highlights of my trip back was visiting my friendly neighborhood coffee shop, CitiSpot. I've yet to find a place that knows how to make a cup of joe like CitiSpot.

It was my home away from home before I headed to the Midwest. Every afternoon I headed to the small, side-street shop, grabbed my fix and sat down for a session of productivity I've yet to find anywhere else.

I'm lucky enough to score my "money" seat all week. It's right in the center of the room, which is usually not my style. But at CitiSpot, it's exactly where I want to be. I'm a different person there.

Around three-thirty in the afternoon, the teenage crowd rolls in. Schools out and they're standing outside drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes – typical "cool kid" stuff. I laugh. I used to do that too.

And maybe that's why I'm so comfortable there. Nothing ever changes. There's something unusually reassuring about that.

And yet, I recognize that I can't always live in this state of ease. Ultimately, the well always runs dry.

So I spent my last night in Jersey doing what's typical for me and my friends – a couple beers and a good movie. It may sound like a waste to some people, but to me, it's perfect.

I know that the next day I'll get on a plane to Madison and go back to startup life, which is less ordinary and far more complicated than anything I have ever experienced before. A little bit of normalcy is okay for one night.