Rabbit Write

Moving away from your hometown or just out out your parents house is a  leap.  To anyone who has made it out of a draining suburb or a hopeless small town, congrats! 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 about matching and fitting in. If you decide to leave the group for something you see as better, it will 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. They 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.) Because I 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 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  move to the city I got a lot of,  “Well I couldn’t do that. I don’t know how you’ll do it.”

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  and the parents have to adjust.

When you reach leaving-home age one potent thing that happens is  family propaganda. I was told things like “Remember that your family are the only ones who will always be there for you” and even “I’m sure you will forget all about us…” This doctrine takes form in many cliches: “Don’t forget where you came from”, “Home is where the heart is.”

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 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.

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