or - A Postmature Striking-Out-On-One’s-Own from a Giant Dependent Wuss

Okay, here’s the thing. (“Get outta my waaay! You A-list bores. My Prada shoooes! Are as good as yours.”) I’m not a fan of Myrtle Beach. At all. When I first moved here in 1997 I was 15, so moving to a cool party town was rad and we had a lot of cool places to hang out on Friday nights (until someone’s mom came to pick us up.) And then the second year it all kind of soured for me. The overzealous neon, the realization that we’re the town blue-collar America comes to to get drunk, make bad decisions and leave, the scores of abandoned businesses and run down buildings (I used to joke that Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” must’ve been inspired by one of the band’s visits to Myrtle Beach and/or Ocean Boulevard. I even won an award for a piece about how it was a sick irony that this place is known as the Grand Strand) the canned tourist-centric entertainment that slides by as our only source of local “cultural arts.” (Except for the fine productions out of Coastal Carolina University, actually. They bring in some great acts and have a very talented theatre department for what they have to work with.) It all just got to be a little gross and sad. And then there was the whole “party town” mentality. While there are drugs and seedy areas of any town, only tourist towns have a guaranteed shipment of new drugs and fresh debauchery every single weekend. But really, just sitting in awful, poorly-planned traffic in sweltering heat on flat, tacky highways or flinching at the shamelessness of the bawdy advertising and outrageous gimmicks got to be more than I could handle.

But obviously, there are things unique to this area that I absolutely adore and will miss dearly. I love being near the beach. Sure, it’s crowded and tacky in places and our guests rarely clean up after themselves but there are stretches of beach in residential areas that everyone local knows about, where you’re likely to run into someone you know and you can spread out as much as you want any time of the year. There are beautiful waterways and rivers and marshes for kayaking, there are a few old buildings with rich historical value, there’s an element of small-town charm if you venture just past the city limits. There’s also been a small undercurrent of very cool artsy, “alternative” music and people that takes a little bit of searching and comes in waves but makes dealing with flashy, knockoff-Vegas-style shows a little bit bearable. (These movements come in spurts where there are a couplethree years of stuff happening and people creating and cool hangouts are thriving - anybody remember the Irish pub where Kono Asian Grill now is that was actually run by hip, Irish twentysomethings? or the Lazy i where everyone was friends somehow and we’d go and cheer for terrible screamo preteens just as loudly as we would for Against All Authority or any of the 20 bands Michael was in or when Garrett sang Queen covers on a mic plugged into a keyboard and called himself “Starchildren”? Or even the godawful open mics at Slacker 77? - but because the cool, hip scene here usually consists of poor poor hipsters, these businesses close, the artists move to other cities and the beautiful garage bands get married, have kids and move to the suburbs. There’s a new era of coolness picking back up with the opening of a few cool new spots and the new burlesque troupe and a few decent bands showing up. And I’m so so very proud of the Roundtable Art Group that was started by a few guys I went to art school with and is still thriving, showcasing young local artists in posh venues and events. It makes me hopeful!) There are people here I’ve called friends longer than any others before them that I am very lucky to have known and will miss for a very long time. So, like all places, there are things and people that I am lucky to have known.

The thing is, by 26, most people have successfully gotten away from home for a while and found themselves and, even if they’ve decided to come back to the physical Point A, they’re still rather in control of their lives and their location. Not me, man. And this is embarrassing. When I graduated high school in 2001 I was totally stoked to be going off to a great liberal arts university in a beautiful area of North Carolina where there was culture and life and ever-budding intellect and opportunity. However, due to an abusive relationship, a drinking problem, a suicide attempt, a stint in a mental hospital, and a GPA that doubled as a bargain gas price, I found myself planted back in my parents’ house in two short years, going to technical college and having a massive lesson about humility shoved down my throat. And I. Was. Miserable. (Mostly with myself but that would take a couple years of sobriety and therapy to uncover, wrestle with, and get over.) I wanted out so badly but had absolutely no drive to do anything productive so I kind of wallowed around in general academic progression. I transferred to an actual university in town that we’d always considered a glorified high school (but is really blowing that reputation out of the water these days) and planned to leave and transfer somewhere awesome once I got a couple years under my belt… then I planned to bolt after I got my undergrad degree… then we decided to leave after the baby came… and then we thought we should wait until Greg had been with his job for a year… and then we were waiting around for anyone to reply to our dozens of job applications… And then I looked up and realized that I’ve been here for six whole years wishing I was somewhere else.

The weirdest part about all of this is that, in the last 3-ish years, since I finally sobered up and finally started acting like I wanted to graduate and finally got rid of my high-school sweetheart/shitsack and finally started doing things that I’d always wanted to try (photography, journalism, bellydance, metaphysical meditation, kayaking) I’ve really created a comfortable niche here full of loving, cool, positive people who make me feel amazing about myself and don’t care that I tend to be completely self-indulgent and/or self-obsessed. Since early summer 2006, I’ve been really really happy where I am. (This was a lesson I recognized and accepted when Chloe arrived and God made it obvious that he wanted me to learn how to be happy anywhere I was… I’m not completely dim.)

So it all kind of feels like I’m doing a second take on this whole Having an Adult Life as I’m leaving town this time. It feels like the same sort of goodbyes and ambitious optimism most people feel when they graduate high school and while I realize that I absolutely needed to be home to get my mind together, I’m a little embarrassed to be doing this whole leaving thing so long after everyone else my age has.

And also, I - as well as my family - am more than a little nervous about having the safety net of nearby relatives taken out from under me, like I’m taking the training wheels off my Parenting bike. But even moreso, there’s the idea that I’ll have yet another mental collapse and come crawling back in shambles, doomed to live my entire life within 5 miles of my parents who will inevitably come in and make everything better. Granted, a LOT of things are different this time; I have a partner who loves and supports me, I have a child who’s dependent on my sanity, I have years of therapy and an obsessive tendency to keep tabs on my mental stability, I have a lot more drive and confidence in my life’s general direction, and I think it’s safe to say that the hand I’m playing is significantly more in my favor than last time.

So we’re both really optimistic. The town we’ll soon call home is about 20 minutes from where I grew up, which is kind of funny to me because I remember being 13, obligatorily miserable in my jr. high lifestyle and aching to get out to anywhere else. Now a small town just outside of a few exciting metropolitan areas that has it’s own little identity and humble culture and peacefulness sounds like a perfect first step for us out on our own.

This excitement will not enable any sort of logical sleep pattern for the next couple weeks, though. I’m accepting this now so I won’t be blindsided with exhausted delirium from lying awake all night pondering my current life’s ultimate status… Sometimes I feel a little too much like Angela Chase.

Still, more than nervous or in the throes of bittersweet sentiment, I’m excited. I’ve been waiting for this for a while and I’m glad the Universe has finally given us the green light for some definite forward movement.