I Cannot Win Against Myself.

Yesterday, as I noted, we drove to Hamilton to visit with my family. I haven’t seen most of them since Coffee and I got married in 2005 – and I hadn’t seen a few of them since a few years prior to that.

There is much that I could write here about the whole adventure, but I’ll simply say that my kids loved meeting their (and my) cousins and had a really good time running around being lunatics in someone else’s house. I had a good time catching up and drinking Eastern European Caucasians and meeting some of the new, little, tiny people in the family who hadn’t even been born the last time I saw their parents.

As we drove to Hamilton, I was quite attentive to the whole “turn left at the next.. no, wait, HERE! TURN HERE!” process and it wasn’t until the drive home, tired and weary, that I found myself feeling wistful.

Wistful. About Hamilton.

I know I have a few readers from Hamilton (some who I know and some who I don’t) and I know that everyone has a differing view of the city, so to speak. And in my usual blogging tradition, I’ll state up front that the opinions expressed in this blog are simply the opinions of the blog writer at the time of writing and are subject to change or modification at the whims of said author and, oh, whatever, don’t get your panties in a bunch, ok?

But.. Hamilton is a shit hole. No, not all of it. Much of it.

To generalize: it’s filthy and crumbly and smells weird and has huge sections that have deteriorated to the point of no return. Every attempt to rejuvenate the downtown has failed. Every newly opened business is freshly closed shortly thereafter. The malls are a disaster. The city tries to reinvent itself every few years, fearing the downfall of the Steel Industry (the biggest industry in the area for many, many decades) and.. fails. It’s a commuter city, in many ways, where people buy cheap homes and then commute to other cities to make money for the mortgage payments. It’s full of toothless people, halfway houses, guys who stand on your front lawn pinching their own nipples.. (We called him “Crazy Nipple Guy”. No joke.) Mullets. Rock t-shirts faded from decades of wear.

There are gems in the city and I won’t deny it. I have always loved the downtown (main) library and the Hamilton market. I love walking along the beach and eating french fries at Hutch’s after collecting hand fulls of beach glass. I love the lift-bridge and the Skyway (and not just because my Dad helped build them and/or rebuild them). Beach Road kielbasa and Roma pizza. Fortinos grocery stores. 50 Point Marina. The easy access to NY state. And on and on.

Yesterday we drove past our old house – the one where I lived with my ex and where Coffee came to stay, at first – and I got these pangs of “Oh, we should move back here.” And we drove past the Fortinos and I felt it stronger. I saw all the (many, many, MANY) “For Sale” signs on the houses and I recognized the street names.

The problem with Hamilton (other than the shit hole aspect, I mean) is that it’s chock full of memories. My Dad. My grandparents (both maternal and paternal). My friends. My previous marriage. My assorted jobs and hobbies. People and places and all the rest of it. Good and bad, they’re all still there and they almost float and hover over the entire city. I don’t know if I could live there, again, without a strong dose of anti-anxiety meds every day.

Or maybe I could?

But would I want to??

We’re driving along and I’m staring at the run-down buildings and the shitty apartment buildings and the people stragging along the street with big dogs and messy hair and I know, I KNOW, you’re thinking that I’m being ridiculous here and that Hamilton isn’t some ghetto but, my god, it is. IT IS.

And I’m thinking, “Could I possibly live here again?” and “I could totally get a job in social services in this city when I graduate.” and “Would my kids learn horrible things living here?” and “Holy crap, I’m so judgmental, but I think that’s a hooker..”

And I’m also thinking, “I want my big old house again” and “Maybe the memories are a good thing…”

Don’t get me wrong; we’re not selling the house and moving anytime soon. In another 1.5 years I’ll be graduating from college and starting to work here, most likely in the same place as my field placement, if I’m lucky. I’ll want to work for a few years before making any moves, anywhere, anyway. And I still daydream about a rural property with some fields and trees and space to run…

Life is too short to go back, I think, but I’m not certain. I don’t know what comes next.