Rabbit Write

Moving away from your hometown or just out out your parents house is a huge leap.  To anyone who has made it out of a draining suburb or a hopeless small town, congrats! That took a heap-load of courage. It is something we are often not prepared for and in some cases are actively made to feel bad  for doing. If you are a bit older and feel stuck in that same old space, don’t give up and do not compromise yourself. It could be that everyone around you (weather consciously or not) is making it impossible for you to leave. It’s hard to fly with someone’s muddy boots standing on your wings.

I think any young person who is not being actively encouraged to experience the world away from home with no strings attached needs to examine the relationships which may be holding them back. Why not move to Thailand to teach English? Or go to NYC broke but fabulous? That is exactly what you should be doing after getting out of the prison of high school.

I am from a small hick town in southern Illinois, because of this I have ultra respect for anyone who is strong enough to escape the group-think of a small town and create a life elsewhere. Small towns are very much about matching and fitting in. If you decide to leave the group for something that you see as better it is going to create waves. Deep down they know that if you leave– and mean it– you are not coming back, you see the flaws, the ugliness in their bubble of conformity. Your family and the whole community got stuck in that bubble so if you free yourself they are going to feel anxious about their own life choices.

In the town where I’m from there is an adage about young people who make it out: “They’ll be back.”  The only higher education option that was presented to me after high school was the local community college. I was promised the chance to go anywhere I wanted afterward (in-state of course) and because I really had no other choice at the time I agreed and dissociated my way through those years. True to the saying, each semester kids who had made it out began appearing in my classes one by one. But why? I think without the strong support of their community and families these kids become convinced that they couldn’t do it. This becomes a quicksand, sucking them into the multiple generation-old patterns of their families.

Another small town maneuver is instilling false pride about the town and fear about living anywhere else. From a young age I learned that living in cities was scary, stressful and crowded. There was an air of turning one’s nose up at it, as through city living were immoral. When I decided to leave the small town where I came from to move to the city I got a lot of,  “Well I couldn’t do that. I don’t know how you’ll do it” and smug good luck wishes.

With a lot of common parenting styles the transition from teen to adult also means the switch from a forceful and aggressive parenting style to a passive aggressive, more manipulative parenting technique.  The power balance has now shifted slightly to the adult child’s favor and the parents have to adjust. This takes form in many ways, a common one is Mother’s sadness for your leaving or growing up, it implants guilt for something that you should feel proud of, excited for! All during Ned’s life he got a lot of  “you were so much better at this age” or “Why can’t it be like when you were younger.” As he naturally grew and changed he was made to take in shame and his Mother’s sadness over something that was out of his control.

When you reach leaving-home age one potent thing that happens in the family is that they begin to fill you with family propaganda. In my experience this is when “family is a virtue” is really beaten into your brain.  I was told things like “Remember that your family are the only ones who will always be there for you” and even the guilt inducing “I’m sure you will forget all about us…” This doctrine takes form in many cliches, like: “Don’t forget where you came from”, “Home is where the heart is”, even the word “hometown” is somewhat propagandized. Anyone who has ever vacationed knows that it only takes a few days of settling in before the hotel room becomes “home.” We are adaptive beings, your home is truly where you make it and your heart is with you. For me, this conditioning showed up in strange ways for months after I moved out, it affected how I presented myself, I began bonding with long distance cousins I had little in common with, I took to listening to old records and even tweaked my style to an earthier more flow-y aesthetic that was never mine.

The truth is that family is not a virtue. Family of origin is accidental and family should be earned. I think it is true that we as humans do function better when we feel like we have a safe close community or family that supports us, but that does in no way have to be your family of origin. I think this propaganda is made to keep us close to our family of origin, or feeling like we are indebted to them. You can go away to college but it must be only a few hours away, or in-state, you mustn’t transform into something that makes the family or community uncomfortable, you must keep some of that “matching” in your ideas, identity and appearance. All of which of course is your business, your choice and yours alone.

I think it may be wise to just step back from this grand pattern a bit if you can, to see what is going on and how it is affecting you. It’s all too easy to become victim to this but you can break from it at any point.  All you’ve got to do is make that decision for yourself and no one else. Is the doubt you are really feeling yours? Is the guilt you are feeling truly yours? Who are these feelings benefiting? Your twenties are for making life changing decisions and beginning to do the work to create your dream life. Don’t be held back by people who have already made their own bed and are trying to get you to lie in it as well.

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