Stay or go...

18 July 2022: At several points today, I found myself thinking about how young people decide whether to leave their childhood homes (meaning areas, not necessarily a single structure) or stay (or perhaps come back after college). I guess it had been on my mind in abstract ways since my trip to NY last weekend. 

It came up today at the dentist, when the hygienist asked me if I miss NY. I told her that I missed some things, but was pretty happy with where I am now. I thought about it later, realizing what a privilege it was to have options--to have choices about what I would do, to have the luxury of leaving without great amounts of guilt or obligations and try to make some new, different version of myself.

And then this evening, it came up (as it frequently does in discussions of Appalachia) at a reading I attended by Gretchen Moran Laskas. She pointed to this debate as central to Appalachian literature (which is spot-on). 

It's always kind of humbling to think about the dramatic ways privilege, luck, and chance shape your life.