There's a kind of familiarity that returns when you come back home. An enduring knowledge of how a place feels that can be both comforting and stifling. You know every corner of a place as it used to be. The places that have changed you see in layers. Like those illustrations of the different segments of the earth you were fascinated by in geology textbooks. You know all the landmarks but also the scars. The ugly bits  - the blocks of '70s era apartments that look like they haven't been cleaned since they were built. The rust and the cracks and the grime. Your city is ugly and old and outdated. It's depressing and stagnant. You remember the blocks you drove past in crappy old cars when you were at a low point, dreaming of other places and a different life. Now you nostalgize the place you were born and imagine coming back to make peace with all the longings and apologize for trashing it. It's your family. You see all its flaws but bristle if any outsider has a bad thing to say about it. It's love. The kind you won't ever quite feel for an other place.