Leigh LaFountaine: I’ve lived In Vermont my entire life. Last week, I left.

This commentary is by Keith LaFountaine, a horror author who grew up in Burlington.

Years in the past, I discovered a YouTube video the place Stephen King espoused 10 items of recommendation to the College of Maine’s graduating class of 2005. The closing piece of this recommendation was fairly easy: Keep in Maine.

I love this fervent protection of 1’s homeland. As a child, my eyes had been at all times set elsewhere, over these Inexperienced Mountains. Possibly I’d go to LA and bask within the heat and the town’s hubbub. Or perhaps I’d dwell out of the country — “The Truman Present” satisfied me Fiji was definitely worth the 20-hour flight.

However across the time I graduated faculty, I needed to admit one thing to myself. I like this little state. I’ve for a very long time.

After I was a child, I’d pop into the Borders downtown (the place CVS now stands) and I’d sit in an enormous, comfy chair and browse no matter ebook I had on my individual whereas smelling roasted espresso beans from the café inside. I’d do this whereas ready for the CCTA bus that may take me from Cherry Road to the South Finish, the place I’d move all assortments of sculptures and avenue artwork — notably if Artwork Hop was approaching.

After I grew up and took that winding highway down Politics Ave, I discovered myself appreciating Vermont’s assured progressivism and its tendency to separate tickets (my dad liked Jim Douglas, and I’ve greater than an inkling that he’s keen on Phil Scott, even whereas he helps ship Bernie to the Senate).

However a few yr in the past, I stared a harsh fact within the face.

It’s not simple to remain in Vermont.

The state has bled younger individuals so long as I can bear in mind. That’s nothing new. However I didn’t absolutely respect the gravity of that migration till I used to be within the midst of my very own.

Skyrocketing hire, stagnant wages, few long-term profession alternatives, landlords’ ironclad grip on the renting market, housing costs that price about two livers and half a kidney to afford (and that’s simply the down cost), and an enormous previous pit sitting within the heart of the town, like a pimple that was dug out of a pockmarked face with a rusty tack. 

And let’s not neglect a state faculty system that’s chronically underfunded and underappreciated, or how Burlington’s mayor likes to tout his Habitat for Humanity credentials whereas pursuing plans so as to add one more luxurious lodge to the map as an alternative of inexpensive housing.

These should not new observations, and they aren’t distinctive ones, both. These are points which have dogged our small state for many years. They’re points I’ve heard grumbled about on the dinner desk. They’re points I’ve groused about with buddies. They nearly really feel like a ceremony of passage to turning into a Vermonter — to complain about taxes, or to complain about this landlord or that piece of reports. 

It’s a noxious brew, and one I drank greedily, notably as my hire bumped up and up, and my paycheck remained stubbornly static.

Earlier than shifting, we thought-about shopping for a home (therefore how I got here to my astute kidney and liver equation). However at the same time as I received a brand new job with a beefier wage, I spotted that our housing prices, coupled with different cost-of-living bills, made it in order that we might at all times be simply above water to afford our lives, however by no means ascendent sufficient to plan our marriage ceremony, or to afford a home, or to develop a household. Not comfortably, not less than.

So, we began to look elsewhere. And, final week, we made a trek throughout the nation to a brand new metropolis.

That transfer was painful for me. My horror author thoughts conjured a picture the morning we left: that of me crawling up these Inexperienced Mountains, burying a knife in my chest, pulling my steaming coronary heart free, and burying it up there, within the dust, within the timber. I can see the darkish blood and the moist soil beneath my fingernails. I can really feel the vacancy in my chest.

All I ever needed to do was keep in Vermont. Even now, I write tales about our state. The Northeast Kingdom makes frequent appearances, my private Citadel Rock, the place ragged strangers come to city, hiding their brimstone odors with headache-inducing aftershave or fragrance; the place crimson-eyed bears linger outdoors ramshackle diners; the place winter threatens to blacken appendages; the place monstrous spiders wait, mandibles dripping, legs writhing.

However Vermont is just not simple to remain in.

As we moved out of our house, I discovered that my landlords bumped the worth of our previous house up one other $100. And so they bought it, seemingly with out subject. As a result of in Vermont, when an house goes available on the market, you’ve about 24 hours to get an software in earlier than it’s going, going, gone.

I don’t know whether or not we are going to keep on this new metropolis, or if we are going to journey round. Distant work has modified the panorama in that regard. However I desperately need Vermont to handle these gangrenous points as a result of, I believe, deep down, I someday need to have the ability to feasibly give the next recommendation. To myself and to others:

Keep in Vermont.