In the way that so many of those pop punk band from that era lied to all of us about how terrible life in your hometown is, how we were meant for something bigger and the only thing holding us back was the people in this specific location because they just didn’t get it. If we could just leave, find anywhere else, we would find our people and finally be understood.

In the way that Kerouac and so many other Beat writers must have lied to previous generations, and those of us lost souls since who have read the classics to try to appear as mature as we felt, about how leaving is an answer, how if we just get on the road and start moving, we’ll find the places we belong, find our purpose, find success, find whatever we’ve been searching for.

In the way so many people in my life have lied to me when they told me I was destined for more than this town: my mother when I first told her my dreams of being a writer and a teacher, and she broke down in tears over her dashed plans of me leading peace summits at Camp David; my Aunt Susie when I shared the news of my teaching fellows scholarship, and she told me she would hate to see me waste my intelligence like that; my best friend when I told him I had been accepted to New York University, and he treated it like a permanent goodbye by telling me how he always knew I was destined for more than Wilmington; my sister when she reassured me after we found out they don’t make it easy for poor kids to go to an elite school and I felt forced to attend the local university, and she told me I should transfer the first chance I got.

In the way my English literary theory professor lied when he broke down the word uncanny—not home-like—and reminded us of the tired cliché of how one can never go back home, a feeling many in class were wrestling with or had recently wrestled with, and I pretended to know and understand this feeling despite going to the college in the town I grew up in and never having lived more than 20 minutes from my mom.

I know this because I believed the lie.

I believed I was meant to do greater things, that my words might—or probably—mattered than most, and they would carry me places bigger than a relaxed beach town in the South.

I believed that the answers to what I struggled with were out on the road, in some fantastical urban landscape: how every other city and state would pay their teachers fairly, how the cost of living was built for retirees and not young adults trying to establish a family, how I wasn’t involved in the arts and culture scene because of the lack of opportunities and not my lack of trying, how I could finally settle into a writing routine and live up to my built up potential anywhere else.

I believed that whatever happiness I found in this town—the long drives along the Cape Fear River, the taste of salt in the air all around us, the friends who wouldn’t let my ego push them away, the girl I fell head-over-heels for and married to, the son who was born during a rumbling coastal thunderstorm—would only be amplified when I found the place that not only accepted but exalted me.

I believed that when I finally left, I might miss home. The home that I left, though, would no longer be there on my return, the small joys only faded memories, and I would feel validated in my decision to leave.

And I did miss home when we left. Though, maybe not all at once to begin with. The anticipation of uncertainty and possibility made the air smell sweet enough to overlook the lack of salt. St. Louis offered a larger city, better teacher pay, and more culture than I knew what to do with. It’s easy to overlook what’s not there when everything is too loud to notice the absence.

It all comes back to sound in the end, though.

It was an evening in April of 2020, right as COVID and lockdown forced life to slow down and the busyness of moving, first-year teaching jitters, holidays, and snow days faded into a memory of what-could-have-been. I had taken our dog outside once more before bed, and I was doing my best to keep from losing my patience as she squatted and stood up repeatedly, having yet to find the exact perfect spot (any signs of frustration would trigger her anxiety, forcing her to stand completely still and making the whole venture a wash). I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. As I held the inhale, I noticed the silence for the first time. It was a type of silence I had yet to fully experience. No wind. No sound of moving water. It felt like those moments in disaster movies right before everything goes to shit. It probably would have felt more eerie if everything hadn’t already gone to shit around all of us.

But the silence wasn’t enough to trigger it. It ended up being more of a “fun fact” I would tell anyone who would listen for the next few months, how unfamiliar I was with the absence of sound because back home, the air was always there—rustling the trees or moving the water—reminding you of how close to the ocean you were. It brought back my mom’s warning to my sister and me our entire lives: “Because you’ve grown up near the water, you’ll always need to live near it.” I still wasn’t ready to accept this as being true just yet though.

In all honesty, it came in waves.

A few months later, I was scrolling through videos on Instagram during my son’s nap and stumbled on a video of someone showing off their homemade aqueduct, taking us along the path to show how they mastered the delivery of water through various hand-crafted channels. And I had to fight back tears upon hearing the natural flow of water. For the uninitiated, this sound is vastly different than the sound you get from water flowing out of the faucet into your sink or tub, the manufactured replications in meditation apps, or even the recycled sounds in movies. This sound is the essence of serenity, the manifestation of how all life comes back to the water. It is the auditory equivalent of finally releasing the breath you had no idea you had been holding for so damn long.

Like all waves, it begins to grow until it finally reaches the crest.

As restrictions with the pandemic began to lighten, we finally felt comfortable enough to revisit the St. Louis Zoo with our son. He talked most about seeing the elephants. As we came closer to their enclosure, the faint sounds of a waterfall began to break through the noises of the masked crowd. All the feelings of the looped aqueduct video washed over me and intensified. Just before you reach the elephants in the zoo, there’s a makeshift faux-rock bridge to carry the water across and crash into the pond below. The area provides a brief reprieve from the sun, but also amplifies the sound of the falling water. For a moment while we waited for the people ahead of us to continue walking, it felt like home. I was once again surrounded by water, the sound of tranquility in its purest form, and I felt as though I could finally exhale the breath I must had been clutching so tightly those past few months.

The wave must eventually disperse at the shore, though.

And that’s where I came to finally face the lie, standing on the shore at Carolina Beach 4 years after I said goodbye. We had returned home on my 30^th birthday, just briefly for a visit, and made the familiar drive looping from River Road to Dow Road—longer in distance, but fewer traffic lights and tourists clogging up the road. My wife took our oldest down to the water to put his feet in the ocean while I sat further up the beach with our 2-year-old as he plays in the sand. I looked out at the two of them in the water and wondered if the rushing cold water will jolt a long dormant memory inside of him from when we last were here. Will he feel something he cannot fully describe?

I then focused on my little one, enthralled at the way the sand moves in the wind when he throws it towards me. We both could not help but giggle. I stare at his giddy face and try to lie to myself that his pure joy is not just some childlike natural reaction to throwing sand around. It must be deeper than that. This is love and belonging and a homecoming even for the boy born as far away from the ocean as I have ever been.

– Aidan McCourt

Author’s Note: This piece came from reflecting on how strong my desire to leave home was as a teenager, the way all the pop punk/emo bands intensified that feeling, and just how wrong we all were.