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Ryan Paugh graduated from Penn State in 2006 with a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business. After working in corporate communications, freelance writing and reporting, he co-founded 
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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.
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I agree, as someone who is a transplant as well I can totally understand.
I’m impressed that you actually have a hometown you visit. I thought people moved around too much anymore.
I haven’t been back to my ‘hometown’ in about 15 years. My mom lives somewhere else. As do the few friends I keep in touch with from high school.
Do places like this still exist?
Scott M:
Believe it or not, they do. Or at least they do for me. I love my hometown. A lot of young, successful people I know even chose to stick around because they love it so much.
Maybe it’s the familiarity and comfort, maybe it’s the convenient locale (smack dab between NYC and Philly) or maybe it’s something else. But they do exist.
I’d be interested to hear if anyone else feels the same.
Ryan,
I can totally relate. When I was in college and right after I always looked forward to ‘coming home’. In the years since as I’ve moved around a bit there are number of places that I now go ‘home’ to. They’re all different, with different memories, but they have a sameness too and they all still fit like my favorite jeans.
You can always go home and it’s nice to know there’s more than one place to call home.
Oh, Ryan. There are lots of good Italian Restaurants in Madison. Here are some:
Cafe Porta Alba, 15 N Butler, Madison (Ahem, next to the gym you go to)
Authentic italian pizza, great owner, cozy atmosphere
cafeportaalba.com/
Lombardinos, 2500 University Ave, Madison
Great date place, delicious food
www.lombardinos.com/
Oesteria Papavero, 128 E Wilson St, Madison
Owned by the same people as Cocoliquot. Good food for price.
www.osteriapapavero.com/
Porta Bella, 425 N Frances, Madison
This isn’t my favorite, but others like it and it’s an infamous date spot.
www.cafeportaalba.com/index.htm
More at www.thedailypage.com/eats/
What I appreciated most about being home for Thanksgiving, and what I enjoy each time I visit my parents, is the release from feeling so accountable. Not in a lazy sense because I’m really self-motivated, but the idea that for a limited amount of time, I can truly relax and not feel like every waking moment has to be productive. My parents no longer live where I grew up, so when I go to this transplanted “home” it’s just my parents.
My mom plans the meals – I don’t have to figure out where to get takeout on the way home.
My mom wakes me up in the morning – no need to set two alarms (just in case).
I’m 24, but my Dad still reaches for my hand when we cross the street – I’m pretty sure I could make it to the other side without the guiding hand, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Great post, Ryan.
I know exactly how you feel. I grew up in a small (read: virtually mircoscopic) town in the middle of very rural Ohio, and when I was in high school I couldn’t wait to get out. I wanted to be somewhere were no one knew everybody elses business and you could make a trip to the store without running into 10 different people you knew.
Now, even though I love Columbus and never want to live anywhere else, I can’t wait to get home at every opportunity. I love that I can run into familiar faces and I can find out what all my old friends are up to, even if I don’t see them, because I’ll likely either see their parents or someone else who knows exactly what they’re doing.
I love that I can be anywhere in 10 minutes with no worries of traffic jams and can still enjoy the “quaint” aspects of small town life. We can still go to a drive-in movie in the summer, I can go to the coffee shop on a saturday morning and talk local politics with all the local “political elite,” and last Friday, my family and I went to a local family farm and watched my dad cut down our Christmas tree.
I’m young now, and can live where I want, but I can see myself struggling with a lot of guilt if I choose to stay here and cheat my kids out of the experience of growing up in a small town.
Ryan,
Some things just never change. Every holiday season I head down south to visit my dad and to see my “high school boys.” After the first night of catching up, its back to high school for the rest of the vacation. Video games till 4 in the morning, beer until it doesn’t taste good and the lewd and inside jokes that no one else will understand and probably take offense to. After day 3 or 4 it becomes awkwardly obvious that we all want back to the life that we have grown accustomed to and this debauchery has to end. Except for the one kid who never moved away, and more than likely never will. It is in him that I see the desire I have to make something of myself and not have to go back to the hometown, even though it is a breath of fresh air from the rabid runnings around of work and the start-up life.
Oh and I think it’s funny that Penelope listed off restaurants that pass for Italian in Madison when we all know that they wouldn’t fly anywhere else.
Everyone,
Thanks for the responses. I think the moral is that no matter what leaps we have to take and what uncomfortable situations we find ourselves in as we force ourselves to grow up, it’s still alright to embrace that unchanged world we knew when we were young.
I’ll always appreciate the luxuries of home and I’m lucky that I still have so many friends there to share it with. But like Scott said, it’s also nice to have more than one place where you can feel that comfortable. I hope I find that in my lifetime. I’m sure I will.
-RP
Great post, Ryan. I’m lucky enough to get to stay home for Thanksgiving and have people come to us.
Loved the part of your story about your catch-up time with Janet. Yes, as an independent consultant and entrepreneur, I manage to avoid becoming entangled in office politics, but it still doesn’t elude me (teaching at a university and being involved in volunteer boards ensures I get my fair share).
Shouldn’t amaze anyone that it still exists… wherever you have two or more people, there will always be jockeying for position or resources unless a clear mission/direction exists that overrides individual agendas.
We’ll hope your Christmas break is a little more eventful.
I definitely get that feeling everytime I go home. My friends are all seniors in college now and the great “What the hell are we going to do after we graduate” conversations are springing up over beers at bars we only used to drive by in high school. In my crazy Boston life of juggling classes, work, Girl Scouts, and soon-to-be-again co-op, it’s nice to be able to go home and sit in a room with people drinking beer and talking about nothing. But some nights you definitely get that feeling of missing the hustle that your other, grown-up life gives you. One thing that’s weird for me is that the company I worked for in high school and for 2 years of college during the summer, is closing. It’s no longer going to exist. Everytime I go “home,” I usually stop there before going to my actual house to say hi to my old boss and coworkers as well as someone who has become my best friend in the whole world. It’s going to be so strange to me that I can never go back to that place again.
I hope you enjoyed your coffeehouse productivity. I’m hoping for the same as I try to write just a few more pages of my second final (out of four) before this semester is finally over.