breaking up with your hometown

I grab my Sharpie and write ‘fragile’ across a cardboard box, struggling to get it to fold properly so it can be securely taped shut. I pick up the box, now filled with dried flowers I couldn’t throw away. I add it to the growing stack of boxes that are taking over what used to be recognizable as my office.

My home doesn’t look like a home anymore.

These are my final days here before I go off and pursue my MFA in Fiction.

When I chose to apply to grad school, I didn’t think I would get in. I just knew my time here was up, and I took a chance at an escape plan. I know myself well enough to know that I would not be able to leave without a good enough reason.

I didn’t want to have to move. This plan I had of finding love, a career, and community, none of that came true. There were sparks of the plan coming to life, but it just didn’t stick around very long. Something went wrong a few years ago.

Maybe it went wrong when I cut off that friend.
Or maybe it was the other friend.
Or when I got laid off.
Or when I wasn’t invited to that thing or the other one.
Or maybe it was when I didn’t reach out. Again. And again.

I feel like my hometown has broken up with me.

Not that I’ve broken up with him.

For the past five years, since I graduated from undergrad and moved back to where I grew up, I have been begging this town to give me a reason to stay. I was deeply in love with this place three years ago. It’s slowly been pushing me away.

Like the boy you loved, who told you that you deserved better. You don’t want to believe them at first, but I am finally listening.

I fought for us to be happy together for longer than I should have.

Because I don’t believe in running away, I am more the opposite. I believe in pushing through problems. But it gets to a point where one can only handle so much.

I sit in my favorite small movie theater with my Coke, popcorn, and Reese’s Pieces. I jolt as I notice what looks like a man, a man who hurt me, is sitting a few rows ahead. My ankle starts to shake leaning up against my knee. The film is starting, and I am squirming, trying to get a better look. Is that him? What happens when the lights come on at the end of the movie? What do you say to someone who betrayed you? Another feeling arrives, hope. That maybe he senses me behind him. He will turn around and see me and remember how much he hurt me. As the movie goes on I come to the conclusion it can’t be him. He knows my laugh; he’d turn around.

As I drove home alone from that movie, I was reminded that I must be making the right choice. I never thought I would be someone who wanted to leave their hometown out of the annoyance of ghosts of my past. I thought I could stay longer, I could take it, just like I have taken a lot of other punches.

I never got the idea that staying where you grew up was some sign of failure.

I used to walk down the street hoping to run into a familiar face.

Now I flinch when I see a car I recognize.

This is the only place I can drive without directions. The only place where my beautiful family is just thirty minutes away. I love being that comfortable.

Every day on my way to work, I drive past the place I used my fake ID for the first time. And there’s still an ache of joy that comes with that. I enjoyed my adolescence here. I never hated this town. I still don’t hate it. It’s just become very complicated.

I don’t believe in a God, but I do believe something or someone knew that the only way I would finally leave here is if I lost almost everything. It had to become alarmingly apparent that staying here another year would be self-harm.

It has gotten to the point, I feel like I don’t have another choice.

I wouldn’t say the excitement has hit me about this move. I am not even leaving the state, but it will be the furthest I’ve ever been from home. And I am doing it completely alone. I don’t know anyone where I’m going. But that’s the whole point.

I need a fresh start, to try a taste of the delicious flavor of becoming someone new.

I am also not excited yet because I still have a list of shit I have to get done. I want to feel like I can finally rest. Then I think about how that feels impossible. Ever since I turned 25, there’s just an endless list in my head of shit I have to do. And it never ends.

I am not bitter at my hometown, but this is not the romantic ending I hoped for.

No one from my past has reached out to say goodbye or confess they secretly loved me. Most seem to believe I was already gone. I say this because I ran into someone at the grocery store last month, and they literally said, “I thought you left already.”

This town has moved on without me, the people have, and I see it. I understand my time here is up, so I am leaving. I agree that there has to be better things elsewhere.

As much as I wished to find my happiness here, it’s not happening.

The cut gets deeper the more time I spend here. Like living with your ex, you’re not over and watching them bring someone new over.

I see that this town doesn’t need me anymore.

I find a photo of people I haven’t spoken to in months at the bottom of my nightstand. I remember when it was taken, I remember the sound of laughter that night, and how full of love I felt. I will always remember. I throw it into a U-Haul box. I doubt I’ll hang it in my new home, but I can’t let it go. Not yet.

I must not forget that this life here wasn’t always this painful. I loved this home I have been living in and the people here. I loved the job I have had and the people I’ve been working with. It’s not all been bad, I know that. But I am in the thick of it right now.

The funny thing about breaking up with someone is that you could always get back together.

I have no idea if I’ll regret this move.

But I must go.

So I am going.