I have always been drawn to water.

I’ve been often told that, when I was little, I would have crawled into the nearest lake if I were left to my own devices, a drive my children worryingly inherited.

Lake Huron acted like a compass for me. It pulled at me like a magnet.

I was in my late teens, when I was offered the chance to visit the Thunder Bay Island Lighthouse, I jumped at the chance. It is, after all, the easternmost part of the county.

We had a picnic on the island in the shadow of the lighthouse, and were given tours of the buildings there and learned about its history. I walked along the rocky shore while the sun set. It remains one of my last memories of Alpena before leaving for university, and it’s one of my favorites.

The pull to the east didn’t end there.

I never had a desire to head toward places like California or Alaska. Even travelling to Gaylord felt like I was going the wrong way.

When I completed university, I often found myself looking at a map and wondering where I wanted to go next. I considered places like Toronto or New York, but they didn’t feel right. They didn’t feel far enough east.

At the time, it was difficult to find a teaching job (even with my math certifications), so, on a whim I applied for one in the United Kingdom. If I couldn’t find a job close to home, I might as well see how far my inner compass took me.

I was both terrified and surprised when they quickly said yes.

For most of the next 14 years, I moved between schools in and around London, eventually settling on teaching fourth grade in a small school.

Throughout that time, I felt like I was a traveller, still looking for home. Increasingly, however, I wasn’t quite sure where home was. I spent a considerable amount of my weekends picking small villages on the map and travelling to them by bus, car, or train. I hiked across the Welsh countryside, explored castles in southern Ireland, and stayed in a bed and breakfast in a village called Beer.

My explorations left me with fond memories and lots of pictures, but none of the places I visited felt like home. Before long, I felt the pull east again and found myself exploring the North Sea coast.

Eventually, I found a place which was the perfect amount of east.

Thankfully, my job (by then having left teaching for an information technology career) approved of my working remotely most days, and I made my move.

Before long, however, I realized that it wasn’t the direction which called to me, but the similarities to Alpena.

Instead of Lake Huron, I had the North Sea. Instead of U.S.-23, I had the A12. Here, there were places which reminded me of Starlight Beach and Squaw Bay. There were lighthouses, theaters, and even two cinemas which felt eerily similar to the State and now-closed Royal Knight.

What I had been looking for all this time were connections back to where I started.

As much as I’ve been driven to move east, there’s a large part of me still sitting at Thunder Bay Island Lighthouse, watching the sun set.

Matthew Pugh is a technical architect and software developer who was born and raised in Alpena. He now lives in Suffolk, England with his wife, Rowena, three kids, a cat, a dog, and a dangerous number of guinea pigs. He can be reached at pughmds@gmail.com.