#087 - Tim Doyle - Returning Home Will Show You How Much You’ve Changed

Going back to where you’re from hits different when you’ve outgrown it. The house, the bed, the neighborhood—all familiar, but something’s shifted. At first, it feels like you don’t belong there anymore. But with time, a new kind of belonging emerges. This episode explores how distance reveals growth, how change reshapes what “home” means, and what it means to return—not as who you were, but as who you’ve become.

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Transcript

Going back to where you’re from hits different when you’ve outgrown it. The house, the bed, the neighborhood—all familiar, but something’s shifted. At first, it feels like you don’t belong there anymore. But with time, a new kind of belonging emerges. This episode explores how distance reveals growth, how change reshapes what “home” means, and what it means to return—not as who you were, but as who you’ve become.

And as a quick note—this episode was different. Instead of free-forming like I’ve done in the past, I sat down and fully wrote this out. It’s the first time in a while I’ve done long-form writing like this, and it felt incredible. Hope this short reflection resonates with you in some way.

As I sit here writing and speaking this, I just returned home after a week of being away. But the thing is that home and away have taken on new meaning compared to the first 96% of my life. Home is Austin, TX now and going away is what used to be called home – Connecticut. This is the first time returning to Connecticut since I moved to Texas. In other words, the longest time I’ve ever been away from what used to feel like my home base. 

It’s technically a return home, but I’ve never been to this place before actually. Because who I am today had never inhabited this environment before. And there also parts of my environment in Connecticut that would be very new to me…one being that for the first time in my life I would be entering into the home I grew up in and would not be greeted by a dog. My latest dog who had been in my life since sophomore year of high school had passed earlier in the year. When she was sick, but still alive I had the thought that when the time does come when she passes… that will feel like entering a new chapter of life where a piece of childhood begins to fade. Walking back into my house confirmed this feeling. It didn’t feel like sadness, but just a validation of what I thought would be the case.   

It didn’t sink in that much though the first time walking through the door. Largely because of being exhausted from returning in the early hours of the morning after navigating JFK’s chaotic and poorly designed pickup location. My focus was just on getting a few hours of sleep before waking up later that day for work. What did hit me came right as my head hit the pillow. Lying in this bed…my bed…felt like just a bed. A real sign of change…something that I wasn’t expecting. Something that had formed to the shape of me and felt second nature to me…didn’t have that same feeling…at least not in that moment. 

And that feeling built upon itself as I walked and drove around my neighborhood and town. Buildings and houses that were once work sights, now fully built. Buildings and houses that used to be, now torn down. New projects in process that I had not seen started. I had not seen my hometown in the current state that it is. And my hometown had not seen me in the current state that I am. Change of location will facilitate so much change in different avenues of life. It’s only natural. Going back to an old environment, especially one that you used to live, allows you to feel that change that much more in the present moment. 

These changes were further accentuated in the change of climate and terrain. Warmth and flatlands had turned to cold and leaves changing colors. Part of the reason why I wanted to move out of the northeast and to Texas was because of the climate. I hate the cold and love the heat. While my body may have felt cold in that trip back, my mind and heart were warm for knowing what my life has turned into. 

This trip as a whole gave me a view of life that I had never witnessed before, especially within just a 7 day period. I experienced new life by meeting a niece who has just entered this world, seeing two lives become one through a friend getting married, and visiting someone who is in the final stages of life. Being able to experience just one of these events will do some work on you, but all of these things sequenced within one week…it gave me a full spectrum view of what life is and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be able to have witnessed it. 

As my stay continued, something special happened. It started to feel like home again, but not in the way that it used to. I forget the exact line but there’s this comedian Alec Flynn who said something in a video of his once that stuck with me – it was something to the effect of – the reward for leaving home and going out there is being able to go back, but still being who you’ve become. Everything was the same, but it wasn’t. Change is an equation with multiple variables and when you change one variable…the whole equation changes. 

I’m a big believer that if you want to create change within your life, moving your environment is the best way to do that…and the bigger that move, the larger that change in yourself can transpire. By no means am I saying this is easy. It’s hard. When I had the idea set in my head that I wanted to move to Austin I started crying because moving somewhere new means leaving somewhere known. The last couple weeks before officially moving I was also a mess, but what I kept falling back on was – you know this is what you’re supposed to do…and that was the truth. You will be met with resistance to some of the best things that will come into your life. The resistance that feels like it’s pushing against you becomes the force that pushes you forward. 

And I didn’t feel that shift until the full circle moment of leaving Connecticut and coming back to Texas…home. It’s crazy, but almost to the exact day that I came back to Texas was the same day I came to Texas for the first time the previous year. It’s a special feeling to be with people very close to you and cherish and appreciate that time, but then be able to leave and return to a place that you’re also very happy to be for the life that you have there. How long will I live in Texas? I don’t know. Will I ever move back to Connecticut? I don’t know. Is there anywhere else I want to move to? I don’t know. There’s a lot of “I don’t knows,” but I see that as a lot excitement for the journey ahead.