Long post incoming. Doing a lot of reflecting, so I decided to post it on here as a stream of consciousness in hopes of getting it out of my mind. Good to have, I guess. Feel free to read through.
Recently, I’ve been going through some stout obstacles in my personal life. Nothing remarkably devastating, but enough to give me a blunt reminder that life has a way of knocking you down a peg if you’re living a life that is unsustainable for who you are. Take the time for your own self-discovery. And when you do discover yourself, don’t compromise that. Even if that discovery dramatically changes the parts of your life that are already in motion.
After six years of my undergraduate education and part of my initial attempt at grad school, I came home to the placed where I was spawned. Ravenswood, West Virginia. A particularly small town of 1.8 seated on the eastern edge of the Ohio River. A town experiencing sharp decline over the course of decades. So much that USA Today once did an article about declining industry towns (or ghost towns as they called it). http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-01-townhangingon_N.htm
It’s safe to say that Ravenswood is not so unfamiliar with the crushing problems of the world. The population is decreasing sharply, business is faltering, countless student abuse scandals have come to light, drug abuse is increasing, and poverty levels are similarly elevated.
I never felt at home here. Not even once. This is a place where I spent the 17 most formative years of my life, or so I had thought previously. I used to remark that I never belonged here and I was never meant to be here (whatever existentialist line of thought that was for a 12 year old)
Last night I sat with my eight year old niece at the Ravenswood Elementary School’s timeless playground. Our fun was boosted by the background vocals of a choir of screaming cicadas. Little league teams practiced audibly in the distance. Families sat outside on their porches, body language limp and relaxed. The weather was hot and humid. Sweat trickled down my forehead from a mostly failed attempt at tennis just moments ago. A dark green clunky Oldsmobile came roaring down the street behind us. As I panned my field of vision towards it, I saw light reflecting from what was unmistakably a glass bottle tilted upwards. The man drove down the street while chugging what was presumably some type of cheap whiskey, Canadian if I had to guess. My niece, to my surprise, recognized right away that the man was drinking and driving and looked for my approval that what he was doing was unsafe
After talking to her briefly about it, my own mind drifted towards the question of what motivates an individual to drive through a small town filled with kids playing all while downing copious amounts of liquor. Is my hometown that depressing? What really makes it a bad place? When I moved to Morgantown, I thought I had found myself and I was done. I quickly discovered how infantile that train of thought was.The real difference between my hometown and college for me was the freedom for self-discovery and the new environments the latter put me in. It helped me begin the process of self-discovery and find the things that could make me happy.
I said earlier that I never felt at home here, but the truth is that I also never really felt happiness here. Not since I was very little, if you want to even count that. Of course, however, times were not always easy for my family. We struggled to get by and where I’m at right now could be much worse. Though it wasn’t all bad, I at least had a few very happy years of my early childhood with a home, a wonderful dog, and great friends before the financial struggles of my parents invoked bankruptcy grim reaper. We thereafter lived in run-down, moldy trailers, apartments, shared homes, and sometimes with distant relatives. It’s only now that I realize I can’t blame my unhappiness here solely on those conditions. And it wasn’t because my family didn’t love me, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. I was unhappy here as a teenager because I couldn’t find myself. I didn’t have the means. I love my family to death, but the small town mentality is a hard one to break out of. I know where I came from, but I know I am ultimately very different from my hometown friends and family. I don’t know which genetic dice were rolled during my conception, but the end product isn’t something that has a lot of similarity with my family. And that’s okay. I don’t have anyone in my family to talk about my dreams in physics/philosophy, my VC plans, leftist political philosophy, bisexuality, etc. But that’s okay. I don’t need them for that. They are a very strong support system in general. Does that support come conditionally? Maybe. But that’s okay. They’re human. I can’t hold my own family to impossible standards because they make transphobic comments or because they don’t believe LGBT people exist. It’s not okay, but expectable that they make really negative comments about Obama (for all the wrong reasons), the homeless, marriage equality . I can, however, work on those things with them gradually.
During this reflection with my niece, I happened to look around at the world around me. I was sitting somewhere I played fervently at nearly 18 years ago. I I felt as if I was looking at my hometown objectively for the first time. As a 23 year old, with some kind of positive direction and indication of who I am. I asked myself, is this place really so insufferable? Surprisingly, my resounding answer was no. And in that moment I felt an overwhelming peace wash over me. A sense of relief that brought my tensed body to a relaxed position.
Don’t get me wrong, I am better suited elsewhere with more like minded people, but the point is my hometown is nowhere near as bad as I’ve made it out to be. It can be a judgmental, struggling, hateful little town at times (if not most), and that’s a huge negative, sure.
The point is that if you’ve never felt at home where you’re from, just remember that it’s nearly impossible to experience it as it truly is in the present. When you go back, you experience it as you remember it, for better or worse. While it may not be a place for you to thrive, I’m sure in most cases it is not the worst place in the world. I know my situation may not be similar to yours, but remember this when you visit next: Bring your unique experiences to your hometown for the better each time you stop in. And make sure to take the time for yourself to experience the things you need, in whatever way you can. If you need to do that weird thing on your own that your family looks at you strangely while you try your best to explain it to them, then do it. Just keep in mind that finding yourself is the most important thing you can do, and maybe that hometown animosity is due to a need to find that suppressed inner voice that has never been allowed to bloom while you were there. Leave. Let your voice bloom. Come back and reflect. Go back out in the world and bring something positive with you each time you return.
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