Sebastian White :: Flip Side to Maine Brain Drain Dilemma

OPINION

Flip Side to Maine's Brain Drain Dilemma

Bangor Daily News | July 30, 2004
By Sebastian White

I grew up on a tiny island, a craggy, lupine-dotted paradise a dozen miles off Maine's spectacular Midcoast where people from Boston and New York today spend millions to build lavish homes and experience the same lazy and simple idyllic way of life that was mine when I was a child. It’s unsurprising that in this era of skyrocketing real estate prices and never-ending fascination with Maine’s matchless beauty and its unparalleled way of life, people often ask me why I made my exit from the state five years ago when I headed off to college.

Earlier this summer, a puzzled newspaper reporter even came calling for insight, and I was speechless. The truth is I’d never given much thought to my decision to trade life in the safe and breathtaking isle of my youth for a decided backwater on the fringes of the American Rust Belt.

Today, as Augusta’s gathering concern over attracting and retaining young people gets considerable press, with emotional stories of departure angst splashed onto the front pages of newspapers statewide, I got to thinking about my own flight five years ago. Leaving the state, in retrospect, was probably as much about my own need to develop a distinct self-identity and about getting to know the world beyond small-town Maine as it was about earning a college degree.

Last year, when I closed the book on my college experience, a story-rich four years of endless studying interspersed with occasional excess, I chose to not return to Maine. My decision to move instead to Boston wasn’t affected by a lack of jobs, Maine’s increasingly unaffordable housing stock, or the general malaise of the state’s economy. The hard-to-swallow truth is that I didn’t return to Maine—because despite its sane pace of life and the romance of its foggy, majestic landscape, a serene aesthetic I desperately missed during college—it isn’t the right place for everyone.

Right now it seems to be too little excitement and too many limitations.

As a 22-year old college-educated Mainer living in Massachusetts, I typify those being targeted by Gov. John Baldacci and his new stop-loss order, a hopeful attempt to stem the tide of young people migrating toward more job- and culture-rich places nationwide.

But unlike the twenty-somethings being acknowledged by the brain drain task forces, I’m one of the young Mainers whose decision to stay or leave is not prompted by external factors like housing and jobs but by the deep-seated human need for self-exploration, the kind that is ultimately difficult within the safe and comfortable confines of the Pine Tree State.

Although some of my friends still living in Maine might allege otherwise, my journey hasn’t been so much about snobbery as it has been about my attempt to comprehend the sheer scale of our world, a tough lesson to learn growing up on an island (population 350) in Penobscot Bay. Travel and far-flung living have been my map for understanding the vast distances between people and places, our own boundaries existing both geographically and psychologically, and not about being able to rattle off a list of the hippest hotels in coastal California or the best bars in trendy Toronto.

More than that, though, my experiences have been about self-effacing moments of introspection, those points of realization in life when the dizzying complexity and intimidating size of our world come into sharp focus: a quiet, twilight stroll on a panoramic bluff overlooking the Pacific as a deep orange sunset subtly met with murky waves and disappeared into the endless horizon; a dreary Paris day, not long after the Concorde disaster, sitting tired and weary inside a hulking jumbo jet, staring down that fateful runway before a long transatlantic journey.

These moments, when I’m far away from Maine, are ironically both the times when I miss the place most and when I feel most driven to keep exploring beyond the state’s borders. It is the intrigue of being far from home, but feeling completely at home, that propels me forward.

So even though my life has evolved considerably since childhood, I won’t say it’s a better life than the one in which I was raised. That would surely sound uppity, a decidedly un-Maine characteristic. But it is a different one—that’s all.

Having lived outside Maine for five years now, I see a flip side to the dilemma posed by the brain drain. Without the experience gained from leaving Maine, my generation and those who follow may lack a necessary perspective and be ill-prepared to lead our continually evolving state. We must remember that our real focus should be on reining in those who want to return to Maine but can’t find jobs or affordable housing, not on dissuading curious young people from leaving the state and exploring in the first place.

To be sure, many teens don't get the chance to see the amazing diversity of places and ideas our world offers, and most probably don’t even consider leaving the state for college. But they need to know that there is a life for them outside their small Maine communities and that the experience gained by leaving Maine, if only for a short while, can have a profound impact both on one’s life and one’s home community and state.

When I finally sat down to chat with the reporter who reached me earlier this summer, I probably overstepped the bounds of good grace in my admissions about my home state. He quoted me as saying that, “I have no desire to make my life there,” and I upset some readers with my brusque comment.

Truth be told, the journey that began half a decade ago and drew me away from Maine will undoubtedly continue to take me in unexpected directions, and whether that includes a return to Maine is anybody’s guess. Until the day I get the fire for travel and the desire for urban living out of my system, though, Maine is sure to remain an important touchstone, the one place where I can come to recharge and put my life into its much-needed perspective.