I’ve lived on Long Island my whole life. After I was born, I was brought to a house in Brentwood where I lived for two short years, then my family moved to a neighborhood in Smithtown. In fact, the house we moved into is the house my mom grew up next to, which also means that my grandmother lives directly next door to us.

The benefit of having a small family is that it’s not hard to keep track of them all, especially when every single-family member lives on Long Island as well. The farthest family member resides in Central Islip, a mere 20-minute drive.

No one in my family has ever left the Island. Every one of them has lived here their entire lives. My mother grew up on the same exact block we live on today. My father grew up a couple blocks over from where we live today.

That scares me.

I try to picture myself living here, on Long Island, for the rest of my life like my mother, my father, like the rest of my family, and it scares me. How can I, or anyone, stay in one spot their entire life knowing there is a whole world beyond Long Island to see, to experience?

Sure, there’s vacations, and traveling is always an option, but there’s only enough time and money in someone’s life to see the world. And vacationing in a spot is always different than living there. By being on vacation, one cannot possibly experience the authenticity of the visited spot.

I’m determined to get off this island, to move, and live, and experience a life outside of Long Island, outside of the place I've resided for 23 years because I want to experience more and do more with my life than my parents did. I’ll be the first one, though. It saddens me when I think about the life my mother lived.

She could have done so much more, been so much more, but she chose to stay. She chose to look at the same place for over 50 years. It saddens me and it scares me. I shudder at the thought of my life ending up like that.

I do not want to be stuck here. I do not want to end up living life like my mother, like my parents.

This dream is so real in my head, and when I close my eyes to picture myself getting up and leaving, I can see it. It’s so close to being a reality for me, but then I open my eyes and take in my surroundings and think, my entire family, everyone that I love, everyone that I know lives within a 10 mile radius from me. How can I leave all of that behind? How can I move on knowing everyone is here? Everyone is home.

And that scares me too.

It scares me to leave, but I think it scares me more to stay.