Where did you grow up?
Did you grow up in the big city or the country? Maybe you grew up in a smaller town or a smaller city? Did you enjoy it or couldn’t wait to leave it? Maybe you never left it. I grew up in a small city called Belleville Ontario just 2 hours East of Toronto. The population of my home town is just shy of 50,000 so it’s not so big, but big enough when you’re growing up. I remember being totally in love with Belleville while I was in High School. I couldn’t believe that there might be places out there that could compare to it. There was out little comic book shop which I remember seeing my first Omaha the Cat Dance issue. Our mall was the best and had all the shops I needed or cared about. I remember riding my bike all over that city, then walking all over after my bike got stolen. Even after my girlfriend (soon to be wife) and I left after high school, we still held home close to our heart.
We grew up though and began to see Belleville in a different light. We noticed that people that didn’t leave for school became stuck there. Some (not all) of the people we knew from school bounced from job to job or ended up working in factory jobs. Belleville is a conservative, blue collar city at it’s core and if we stayed there we would not have been able to achieve everything we dreamed of. It’s a fun place to grow up for sure, but I’m very glad that I left. It made me realize there is a place beyond my hometown and to stop looking at it through rose coloured glasses.
There is one song out there that always makes me think of my growing up. It’s from a Canadian band called Blue Rodeo and the song is called Better Off as We Are. Give it a listen as see what you think.
I hope that others kids that that live there will make the same discovery and not allow themselves to get stuck. Because you can always go back and visit. It’s not like it’s going anywhere, but they should be.
Play Asia