A Video That Stopped Me in My Tracks

Yesterday I watched a video that I can’t stop thinking about. A woman with Alzheimer’s sat in a quiet moment of clarity and emotion, tears streaming down her face as she said, “I just want to go home.”

The Ache of Wanting to Go Back

To be clear—I don’t have Alzheimer’s, or dementia, or any form of memory loss for that matter. Unless you count standing in the kitchen for five full minutes trying to remember why I walked in… only to walk out with a handful of chocolate chips and no clue what I was looking for in the first place.

But man, this hit me hard.

Have you ever had one of those days that just kicks your ass? And all you want is to go back to a time that felt easier, softer. A time when you felt safe and taken care of. When you had some sense of control, or at least didn’t feel stretched so thin. When the only thing that mattered was that moment, and being present with the people you loved.

Living Inside Alzheimer’s

I imagine that’s what it feels like to be trapped inside a brain with Alzheimer’s. Even when you’re surrounded by love, being well cared for, and reminded of the beautiful life you’ve lived, you still feel lost. Disoriented and confused, sometimes scared.

Home may be where you physically are, but it’s not the home your heart remembers. Not the home you long for.
Not the one your soul still yearns to return to. Not the home you once knew, the one that still lives quietly inside you.

What Alzheimer’s Takes Away

Alzheimer’s is a disease that slowly erases the roadmap of your life. It starts with small things. Forgetting a word, losing track of time. Then it grows. Faces become harder to place. Memories slip through. Even your own story starts to feel like a book written by someone else.

It’s the most common form of dementia, affecting over 6 million Americans. There’s no cure. And while it often begins with memory loss, it eventually affects language, reasoning, and even the ability to recognize the people you love most. But maybe the most heartbreaking part? It’s not just about forgetting names or dates. It’s about losing the feeling of who you are. The place where you once belonged. The inner compass that told you where “home” was. Emotionally, spiritually, and literally.

Thomas Wolfe Was Right—And Wrong

Thomas Wolfe once wrote “You can’t go home again”. When I first read it, I didn’t believe him. Of course you can go home. You can visit your childhood house, drive through your old neighborhood, sit at the same kitchen table. But what Wolfe meant wasn’t about geography, it was about time. You can’t go home again because the version of you who lived there, and the people who made it feel like home…they’ve changed. Maybe they’re gone. Maybe you’re the one who’s different now.

Nostalgia: More Than Just a Memory

And so, even when you go back, it doesn’t always feel the same. It’s familiar, but not home in the way your soul remembers it. That’s the strange thing about nostalgia. It’s not just a memory. It’s a longing for a version of life, a version of ourselves that we can’t quite return to.

So what do we do with that?

What’s the solution to wanting to feel the kind of happiness we remember, the kind that lived in childhood laughter, warm dinners, and unshakable safety?

How do we use nostalgia, not as something that keeps us stuck in the past but as a fuel that drives the best version of who we are now?

For Those Who Can Remember—and Those Who Cannot

And what about those with Alzheimer’s? Those who don’t get to choose whether they remember or not? Those who feel the ache of being surrounded by love, yet feel deeply lost, disoriented, and scared? For them, “home” may still exist, but it’s become unreachable. A place their heart remembers but their mind can’t find.

What if nostalgia isn’t just a longing, but a slideshow of the life we’ve lived? One we drag out to bore the neighbors with while showing them our most cringeworthy childhood moments?

Nostalgia is proof that we’ve experienced moments that mattered. That we were happy. That we did feel safe, connected, and seen. And instead of treating those memories like places we’ve lost, maybe we can treat them like guides or gentle reminders of what we value most.

Turning Nostalgia Into Guidance

What if we stopped chasing the exact feeling of back then, and instead asked ourselves: What did I love about that time? What was I doing, who was I with, and what did that version of me believe in? Then we take those answers and use them. Not to recreate the past, but to reshape the present.

Maybe we can’t go home again in the literal sense. But we can take pieces of “home” with us wherever we go. The kindness. The joy. The laughter. The way we showed up for others and how they showed up for us. The comfort of being understood.

Nostalgia becomes powerful when we don’t get stuck in it, but let it shape who we become.

Holding On Before It’s Too Late

Maybe for those with Alzheimer’s, it’s already too late to remember what it was they once loved so deeply about their former selves. But for those of us who can remember we have a responsibility to hold on tight. To preserve those memories, those pieces of joy and identity. Not just for ourselves, but for the people around us who might one day forget.

Sometimes we don’t realize we’re in a moment we’ll one day miss. The way the light hits the kitchen table. The background hum of someone we love. The ordinary routines that feel like nothing special until they’re gone. These are the memories being made right now, and we owe it to ourselves to notice them. To pause. To feel them fully. Because today’s quiet seconds might just become tomorrow’s version of home.

Carrying Home With Us

Maybe Thomas Wolfe was right when he said “You can’t go home again”.

But perhaps the real journey isn’t about going back. Maybe it’s about learning to carry home with us, wherever we are.