Why I Want to Leave My Hometown

for starters...

I had my students do a group project today in which they had to make a plan for if a zombie apocalypse occurred. I was thinking about having to get up and just leave everything. It would be easy enough in that situation, albeit traumatizing. I feel like it would almost take an event that extreme to get me to commit to leaving this town.

I have lived here since I was small. I’ve grown up here, spent part of my college years here, worked here for years, and even though part of me loves my hometown, I’m just not happy.

It’s not because it’s a small town or because there isn’t a lot to do unless you have a partner or drink (although that does make it unappealing for me). It’s not because it’s southern and unfashionable. It’s not because of the nasty looking streets or the druggies hanging out at the gas stations.

It’s not even the fact that there are almost no concerts here ever.

It’s just that I feel like I am slowly wasting away here even though I have an okay every-day, coffee cup sip life. I feel like I live every day with hands gripped around my brain, squeezing it to get all of the juice out. Everyone wants a piece of you even though they don’t give a shit about you as a person. They want you to smile and nod and act like everything is a-okay even though you feel like you’re rotting from the inside out.

So, why don’t I just leave?

Someone on social media (a musician) said the other day that they felt like if you never leave your hometown, you’re missing a lot of development. I got triggered because it’s not really as simple as someone in my situation just getting up and leaving. And yet, I have to admit that my heart is at unrest right now. I have bad anxiety that’s not getting any better. Every time I roll out of town, I feel better. And I just feel like I’m not where I’m supposed to be.

I have really known this for a while, but it’s just that there was really no way for me to conceive of going anywhere else. It would still be pretty difficult for me at this point because of my family. I mean, I can do what I want at the end of the day, but I would also look pretty selfish for doing it. I have a few family members that need my help in my hometown. But I have other family members that also need my help in another town. (I have a cousin who has cancer.) I also have property issues here that still need to be resolved. I have an established job here (even though the pay is not ideal), and it would be pretty stupid to get up and leave that.

But I’m drowning.

I don’t know where I’m supposed to be, but I just don’t feel like it’s here.

But it would rip me up to try and make it work to move, even if it was to the town where my other relatives are.

I’m just scared of causing more of a problem than I solve.

But I guess nothing really matters in the end, anyway. You wind up where you’re supposed to. That’s what I hear others say. But how am I going to wind up there if I am constantly too tired to do anything when I get home from work every day?

What if anxiety has my brain on so much of a hamster wheel that I keep forgetting my paperwork, phone calls, putting gas in my car…

Then there’s the living in fear of going somewhere else and still being alone.

I’m so tired. I don’t really know what to do. My dad looks at me like I’m crazy if I even mention moving.

But I have to get out of here.

I feel like I’m dying every day.

And I feel left behind more and more all the time.

But how do you leave a place that knows you so well? It’s a place my heart has bled in so much that I don’t know if it would be possible anywhere else.

(What if I move and lose my soul?)

(But I feel like here people just steal it.)

I can’t really deny that I feel like I want to just run on foot to somewhere else.

____

Talk soon.

-Josee