Are You Sure You Want to Go to Pine Bluff?

Everybody who knows me knows one thing: I love Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

That’s my hometown. That’s where I grew up. My mother was there. My grandparents were there. Aunts, uncles, cousins—so much of my foundation was connected to that place.

I enjoyed getting out and experiencing the world beyond Pine Bluff. But I also loved going back.

What never crossed my mind was that my friends might want to go with me.

I Loved Home. I Just Didn’t Think Anyone Else Would Be Interested.

When you grow up somewhere, you see it through a particular set of glasses.

You know what you love about it. You also know what it doesn’t have. And when you start meeting people from other places, those differences become even more noticeable.

My friends were from the Northeast, Florida, and the Caribbean. They had connections to places like Brooklyn, Chicago, and Miami. In my mind, their hometowns offered things that mine didn’t.

So when I headed back to Arkansas, I never thought to ask, “Do you want to come?”

I wasn’t embarrassed. I wasn’t ashamed.

I just figured Pine Bluff meant something to me because it was home. Why would somebody else want to make that trip?

Without realizing it, I had answered that question for them.

They Knew Me, but They Didn’t Know That Part of My Life

My mother used to tell me that people don’t see us the way we see ourselves.

For years, I understood that in terms of how people form opinions about us. But I eventually learned that it applies to our worlds, too.

My friends heard me talk about Arkansas. They watched me get on a bus or hop in my car and head home. On a three-day weekend, I could disappear into a whole other part of my life.

This was before we could follow everybody’s movements through social media. They couldn’t pull up my stories and see where I was or who I was visiting.

They knew Pine Bluff mattered to me. But they had no reference point for what being there was like.

What did we do? Where did we go? Who were the people I was always going back to see?

The more I talked about home, the more curious some of them became.

And there I was, assuming nobody would be interested.

Ian and Stan Had Other Plans

Two of my fraternity brothers, Ian and Stan, finally made it clear that they wanted to come.

They weren’t waiting for me to decide Arkansas was worth inviting them to visit.

They wanted to go.

Now, understand what that meant. This wasn’t a quick ride across town. We were driving from Florida to Arkansas, a trip that took about 15 hours.

To me, that drive was something I did to get home.

For them, it was part of the experience.

There was the conversation. The trash talking. The chance to travel through parts of the country they hadn’t seen. The backroads and the hours together in the car.

Then we got to Pine Bluff, and they stepped into the life I had been telling them about.

We stayed at my mother’s house. We went out. We drove around town. And, of course, my mother made sure we went to church.

That first weekend, we even ended up at the same club three nights in a row.

I was enjoying having them there. But I still wasn’t prepared for what they said afterward.

“When are you going back?”

They wanted to do it again.

And they did.

They Wanted to Understand My World

Looking back, I can appreciate something I missed at the time.

Their interest in Pine Bluff was connected to their friendship with me.

I had spent time in their worlds. I knew the places they lived and some of the experiences that mattered to them. But I had kept treating my own hometown as a place that was meaningful only to me.

They wanted the opportunity to know that part of my life, too.

Meeting my family, staying in my mother’s house, and seeing where I came from gave them something a conversation in Florida couldn’t quite provide.

They could experience the place that helped shape their friend.

I had focused so much on whether Pine Bluff had enough to entertain them that I overlooked how much there was to share.

Don’t Underestimate Your Foundation

I think about that differently now.

It’s easy to overlook the significance of something you’ve known your whole life. The places, routines, and family gatherings that feel ordinary to you can mean something entirely different to someone experiencing them for the first time.

I knew I valued my foundation. That trip helped me understand that other people could value it, too.

Sometimes, letting people know you better means giving them a chance to see where you started.

I’m glad Ian and Stan asked. I’m even more glad they didn’t let my surprise talk them out of coming.

If you took a friend to your hometown, what would you want them to see—and what would it help them understand about you?

For another chapter of my story, explore my e-book, I Deserved to Be There: A Black Gen Xer’s Journey Through a Post–Jim Crow PWI. If you’ve ever reflected on your roots, your identity, and what it means to belong, I invite you to spend some time with that part of my journey.