By Shelby Hartin
As I’ve grown, I’ve watched companies leave, businesses die, and buildings slowly deteriorate from disuse.
My father lost his job when the starch factory closed while my mother traveled to Boston for a surgery that the doctors in Maine couldn’t perform.
I graduated from the local high school where enrollment has steadily declined and watched all of my friends stay in the area because their families didn’t have enough money to send them to school.
Stuck. That’s what they were.
They acquired jobs that didn’t pay them nearly enough and did what they could to get on their feet while I was at school in Orono, wondering why.
Why would anyone stay?
Locals ask me what my major is and I tell them. They ask if I want to teach English and I say “no,” and inform them of what I would like to do in the future.
“You’ll have to move away from here,” they say.
I agree.
The truth is that I never had any intention of staying.
I’ve watched as companies have left, businesses have died, and buildings have slowly deteriorated from disuse.
From the moment I was able to observe these things, I’ve kept track. The local gas station switched hands, the place where my babysitter used to take me to get pizza no longer exists, the restaurant my parents could never afford left for another town, the bar has opened and closed at least three times and I’ve remained, watching despondently.
“The economy is suffering. There are no jobs,” everyone says, yet they act disappointed when they discover that I won’t stay and use a degree worth thousands of dollars to get a job where a year’s pay will barely pay back a year of my education.
Does anyone truly want to leave a place where they’ve grown? Does anyone truly prefer the choked air of a cityscape compared to the smell of a warm summer breeze in the country? Who wants to leave behind everyone they know and love in order to work so much that they never have time to visit more than once every two years?
And the truth simply remains that I don’t want to go, I have to.
Editor’s Note: Shelby Hartin of Crystal returns to the University of Maine at Orono this fall as a third-year English and journalism major. This summer she has contributed to the Pioneer Times as a student intern.
