My family’s deep roots in the small town where I grew up were an anchor that I didn’t recognize until decades after I left. When I spoke of returning home, I meant only one place – Forest, Mississippi.

In the last few years, all of my closest family members have left our small town and slowly but surely, the network of my extended family there has become smaller too. To quote a song by Lori McKenna: “If you live long enough, the people you love will grow old.”

Still, I love returning to the places and people I knew from my childhood. My childhood friend Brian Kaskie and I talked about this very thing. After college, he became a Catholic priest and often counseled children in Catholic schools in Mississippi. He once told me that he often told his students, “Be nice to these people. One day, they’ll be the only ones who knew you when you were young.”

I’m in the middle of a trip to Mississippi. Since I don’t have a permanent anchor in my hometown, the rhythm of this trip is different, which is both sad and happy. It’s a journey of connecting different dots.

First, I met a childhood friend, Christopher Gilmer, at a fancy restaurant in Jackson. I’m a year older than him, which doesn’t mean much now. Growing up, though, I was a year older than him, so we didn’t hang out much.

Plus, he was already way smarter than I’ll ever be, and I spent most of my free time playing some kind of sport (or curled up with a book somewhere), so we didn’t find much in common there either. Time has softened a lot of what separated us back then, though. In the years since we both left our hometowns, he’s become a university president, an incredible author, and has accomplished so much in the field of diversity and inclusion.

Spending time with a fellow writer who not only comes from the same town as me, but also has the same elementary, middle, and high school teachers, opens up a world of conversation—and is an incredible gift.

After dinner, I drove to a cousin’s house to spend the night. Technically, she’s my mom’s sister’s daughter. (I love following family relationships – and I love my cousins.) I’m a generation ahead of her, so we observed our family from different perspectives. We ended up talking for hours late into the night. It was an encouraging conversation that gave me hope for the future.

The next morning, my cousin made breakfast and her little daughter, who is about to start first grade, showed me the dollhouse she had made out of a cardboard box. It had a shell as a sofa and a remote control drawn with a felt-tip pen on the armrest.

After breakfast, I worked upstairs in a quiet room. As the morning progressed, I heard some noise downstairs, but I had a deadline and no time to leave my keyboard and computer. When it was noon, I went downstairs to find my host’s mother and two of her sisters – three of my cousins ​​- who had come to surprise me for lunch. One of them even made home-grown fried okra.

It was a joyful and unexpected little family reunion.

From Jackson, I’m heading to Starkville, Mississippi, where I’ll visit some of my best friends, including my old college roommate and another dear college friend and I’ll be celebrating a big birthday.

My friend Brian Kaskie always knew that it’s good for the heart to be with the people you love, who happened to know you when you were young. Because as McKenna sings, “If you live long enough, the people you love will grow old.”