Finding A Voice

There were times in my early youth when I truly felt as if I'd be better off dead.  Strange thoughts coming from a ten year-old.  The thing is, there wasn't any significant abuse I suffered (other than hurt feelings from time to time) nor was there any significant lack.  I mean, we were pretty standard middle-class.  I was never hungry.  I was always clothed.  I was always given medical care when necessary.  But something was missing.  It's taken years of therapy to even begin to understand what it was--is.

The little town I grew up in (and grew to hate, then love--for the first time) was for years my black beast.  I could comfortably ascribe blame to it whenever anything went wrong in my life--long after I escaped from it's belching smokestacks and putrid smells.  It was an easy out.  On the worst days of my adult life, I could loudly proclaim that being raised in a small town ruined me.  It deprived me.  It scarred me.

When, as a seventeen year-old, I first moved to Texas, I was to discover that an escape was impossible.  Of course, at that time I thought that what would change everything was a physical escape from the clutches of a place I could barely bring myself to talk about.  I didn't realize then that the place I needed to escape from resided in my own mind.  I conveniently lied to any new "friends" I made--telling them I was from Pittsburgh.  The small town of my youth faded and I rarely looked in the rearview mirror.  Self medication with drugs and alcohol took care of the rest. 

I'm coming to terms with this now as I approach the half century mark.  I need to write about this place, but what I'll actually be writing about is two places.  One is the geographical spot on a map, nestled in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains.  The other is a place in the confused head of a little boy.  I've been chatting quite a bit with him of late.  He has so much he wants to say.

Thomas Boylan · Findingavoice.WAV