I was born and raised in a small town in the middle of Argentina, surrounded by crops and cattle. Las Rosas, my hometown, is part of the country’s agricultural heart. My boyfriend’s family also comes from the same place.  

One of his uncles studied civil engineering at Rosario, the city where middle-class people move to attend college. After completing the degree, his goal was to work in the creation of buildings, bridges, and roads. 

In the different jobs he had, he was always in charge of developing silos and grain bins. 

He has tried to escape the microcosmos where he grew up all his life, but he hasn’t quite succeeded. 

His story reminds me of that scene in The Godfather III where Michael Corleone says: 

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. 

Even though Michael is referring to being a member of the mafia, I still like the reference and the idea of trying to get away from something and being unable to do it. 

During an after-lunch conversation, he summarized his situation in a bittersweet statement. He said:  

I can’t stop smelling like soybeans. 

Soybeans are one of the most important crops in our area. A good harvest makes or breaks the Argentinian economy for a whole year, and they’re exported almost entirely to China and the United States. 

When I heard him say that, I just laughed and didn’t give it much thought. 

The phrase came back to my head when I had to return to my hometown during my first Saturn return. 

I also couldn’t stop smelling like soybeans. 

This is the table of contents of today’s text:

1. Coming Back Home During My Saturn Return 
2. Coming Back Home as a Trope in Films and TV
3. Saturn Return: The Journey to Finding a New Home
4. Journaling Prompts About Your New Home

Let’s go.

Coming Back Home During My Saturn Return 

When I was 18, I moved from Las Rosas to Rosario to study Philosophy. And I decided that I would never live again in my hometown. 

Some people move to the city, attend college, and then return to our town to settle in. They want to have kids in Las Rosas, have their own home, do the same thing daily, hang out with the same people, and enjoy a simple life. 

This was never me. 

Once I was out I thought I would NEVER EVER return. 

In my late twenties, I focused on being a digital nomad, applying a minimalist approach to every object or project I engaged with and having few relationships or objects that would tie me to a specific location. I didn’t even engage in social events back home or try to belong to a community. I wanted to be a citizen of the world and took decisive steps to achieve this goal. 

But life had different plans for me. 

Related: Why I’m So Interested in the First Saturn Return (And You Should Too!)

When I was 30, in the midst of my first Saturn return, my father passed away. 

Since he was not married to my mom (even though they have been together for over 35 years) and my sister has a different biological father (even though my dad raised her), I had to handle the Pandora’s box that opened up with his death. 

My grandmother couldn’t help either because she was in a nursery home with dementia. My grandfather was already dead, and my aunt, my dad’s only sibling, had passed away, too. 

I was completely alone. 

Actually, this is not true. I wouldn’t have survived if I were entirely on my own. Lots of people chimed in and helped me endure this period. 

But it is also true that some processes required my presence, my signature, my decision-making. I had to be physically there to handle paperwork and legal affairs.   

The hardest part was not even dealing with the succession, the debts, the payments to the lawyer, the sale of his business products, or remodeling my grandmother’s house to rent it out. The hardest part was dealing with all this overwhelming stuff in a setting I have always resented and felt uncomfortable in.  

Right there, I realized I couldn’t stop smelling like soybeans. 

At that moment, I knew that the situation was temporary. Once the dust settled, I would return to my quiet city life. 

Back then, building a nest in my hometown was hard. I received that suggestion from someone who opened my Akashic records, but I just couldn’t do it. I felt out of place constantly.  

And even though I tried to enjoy my time there, I just got confirmation that choosing a different place to live was the best move for me. 

Coming Back Home as a Trope in Films and TV

I usually check the website TV Tropes. It offers a classification of different tropes (or should I say clichés?) found in movies, TV shows, and books. 

The Saturnian part of me loves lists and classifications, so it’s very pleasurable to read this site and review my mental record of places where I have seen the trope I’m reading about. 

Luckily, this exasperation I feel toward my hometown has a name. It’s called, conveniently enough, Hated Hometown. 

This trope has sub-tropes that also apply to me. Some of them are called Stranger in a Familiar Land, Small Town Boredom, Small Town, Big Hell, and Never Accepted in His Hometown. 

In movies and TV shows, these tropes can be seen when the protagonist has to return to their hometown after deciding they would NEVER EVER set foot there EVER AGAIN. 

They have to do it because of some unfortunate event or some force majeure reason that makes them leave their new, somewhat comfortable reality and return to their previous despised location.  

Related: My Experiences with the Saturn Return: From Hobby to Business Back to Hobby

When they go back to their hometowns, they feel weird and out of place. The school they attended revived sour memories, and the few friends they actually had seemed to have adjusted to the small-town mentality and be completely different people. Dealing with family members is even worse, providing a lot of stress and bringing back to the surface deep unresolved issues. 

My favorite movie that portrays these tropes is Young Adult. Charlize Theron’s character, Mavis Gary, is a young adult writer who has left her hometown to build a new life in a big city. She returns to “steal” her high school sweetheart from his wife and live her happily ever after. 

What I like about this film is that Mavis is self-absorbed, delusional, and mean. There seem to be no redeeming qualities in her. And I LOVE IT. I love seeing antiheroines and movies without an uplifting message or a moral of the story and the end. 

Furthermore, Mavis is not even thriving in the big city. She’s an attractive writer, has a beautiful, loyal dog, and lives in a fantastic building. Still, she’s miserable and lonely and is always reminiscing about a past that wasn’t that good, not even when she was experiencing it. 

She thought she could triumphantly return to her hometown and ignite her past glories. But this didn’t happen. In fact, her whole plan backfired. 

What I also like about this film is that she realized there was no point in returning to her hometown. She had to do it, for sure, but only to discover that nothing was left for her there. 

Coming back was the wake-up call to change her miserable life somewhere else, knowing it would be less miserable than if she decided to settle down in her hometown. 

Related: What Is the Saturn Return in Astrology?

In other films, such as Garden State, the protagonist stays in their hometown. Life in the city or elsewhere has become unbearable, and they choose the devil they know rather than start all over in a new setting. Even though I find this version of the trope fascinating and compelling, I can’t relate to it. I wish I could, though. 

My life would have been SO much simpler and quieter if I had decided to stay in my hometown during my first Saturn return. I would have a steady salary, a house of my own, and the possibility of going everywhere just by bike or foot.   

But I hated every minute of it. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.

My Saturn return made me realize that my life is not supposed to be easy and comfortable. It has to be colorful, adventurous, and exciting. 

Saturn Return: The Journey to Finding a New Home

Before my first Saturn return, the only moments I missed my hometown occurred when I was having a hard time. 

Nostalgia didn’t have space to emerge if I was happy and fulfilled. 

I used to observe my childhood home with an air of oddness and relief at the same time. 

Oddness because I never felt that place was appropriate or nourishing to me. And relief because I knew I didn’t have to come back to a setting where I was always so sad and tense. 

But Saturn said, “Hold my beer,” during my first return, catapulting me back to the place I was too desperate to get away from. 

My life back home was not the one Zach Braff’s character experienced in Garden State. It wasn’t quirky and charming. It was stressful, busy and boring at the same time, gossip-filled, invasive, and noisy. 

It was more like what Charlize Theron’s character lived in Young Adult  ― There was nothing for me there, even though my brain wanted to think I could retrieve some hidden treasure I didn’t find the first time around. 

Maybe my life in the city wasn’t all peaches and cream, but at least it felt genuine and authentic. Something about my personality is that I will choose the devil I don’t know over and over. 

Not everything is projection. Not every experience you reject shows you something about yourself that you don’t want to accept consciously. 

Sometimes, you truly are in an environment that doesn’t suit you, is unrelated to your priorities and values, and constantly sabotages your nervous system’s balance.  

Ram Dass famously said: 

If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.

Going back to my hometown during my Saturn return made me realize that is very easy to be enlightened and spiritual when no one is pressing my buttons. But when the circumstances are absolutely triggering, all the internal work done looks insufficient. 

Then, like Mavis Gray, I understood that I had to experience that discomfort to get out of there for good. 

I understood that some of my fears or anxieties were not mine but absorbed from my early environment and upbringing. It’s hard to separate what’s yours from what you have picked from someone else, but you need to do it to cleanse yourself from outside influences and connect with what you want for your life. 

Undesirable experiences work as mirrors that show you what you DON’T WANT. 

At that moment, I couldn’t leave my hometown immediately. However, I crafted an evacuation plan, made lists of different tasks I needed to complete to get out, and spoke with different professionals from different areas to become a well-rounded individual able to make better choices. 

Even though my first Saturn return has finished, the process is not completed. Actually, I don’t think it will ever be completed. Nonetheless, now I have more tools to solve the problems that could emerge, and I try to learn and incorporate even more of them every day.   

Some people grow up in a country, city, or family that is perfect for them. They feel relaxed, safe, and filled with opportunities. Others don’t have this experience. And many times, they feel like they are the problem.  

What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I be happy here? If this is not that bad, why can’t I just feel grateful and satisfied? Why does everyone else seem to enjoy living here but not me? 

These are some of the questions that may float in your head if you feel resentment about the place where you grew up. I wrestled with them pretty often in the past. 

Thanks to astrology (and astrocartography specifically), I know we must honor our differences. Not everything is for everyone, and that’s perfectly acceptable. The sooner we learn this fact, the faster we will stop suffering unnecessarily when trying to fit into a mold that is inappropriate for us to start with. ⁠

You can move to a different mold, create a new one altogether, or stay in your hometown but embrace the experience with your true colors, not necessarily the ones you inherited. 

The first Saturn return is about finding a new home. This home could be a mansion in the suburbs, an apartment in a big city, a shed on the beach, a cabin in the mountains, your parents’ house. I mean this metaphorically. Or not. It’s really up to you to find a place where you feel safe enough to be yourself. 

I wanted my first Saturn return to be an episode of Daisy Jones & The Six. Instead, it was more like season one of Somebody Somewhere. 

No regrets, though. Saturn taught me what I needed to learn. This planet usually does that in the most unexpected way.  

Where I come from has informed who I am. I can’t reject that. Now, I’m grateful for it. All of it. 

Even though I don’t want to live in my hometown, I always remember my roots. They keep me grounded and humble and allow the branches of my existential tree to extend beyond any limits I know. 

Maybe I will never stop smelling like soybeans. And I’m okay with that. 

Journaling Prompts About Your New Home

Grab your Saturn return diary and get to it! 

1. Put a timer for 10 minutes. Then, journal freely about your hometown. Do you like it? Do you hate it? Do you live there now? Would you like to live there but you don’t? Are you connected with the community there? No constraints. Just write everything that comes to mind about this topic! 
2. What would you choose if you had to choose your ideal home for your Saturn return and beyond? A mansion in the suburbs, an apartment in a big city, a shed on the beach, a cabin in the mountains, your parents’ house? Put the timer on for 10 minutes and brainstorm about it. Don’t censor yourself. Your house can be as extravagant or as simple as you want. 
3. Watch Young Adult and Garden State. Which one did you prefer? Why? Which character feels more aligned with yourself? Why is that? Is there another movie about the trope of going home that you like? Watch that one, too! 

If you like a movie about the trope of going home, please share it with me in the comments! I would love to watch it. 

Thanks for being there, and until next time!