In Virginia

Virginia is an aged place. A lot of buildings in town have stood since the civil war. Change seems to come slowly. There are people who have never left the county I grew up in during the entirety of their natural lives.

Fauquier county is a place of very distinct possibilities. They are not endless. They are very real and finite. If you want endless then you better get out like I did. I can say with faith that Chicago is a place with unlimited potential. I can't say that about Warrenton, Virginia. I can say that things progress on a very linear and slow moving line that is often held up by the County Board of Supervisors.

It's not that nothing changes and I live in some terrifying place that hasn't changed since Reconstruction. The real truth of the matter is that it feels like nothing has changed because this is the place I grew up. There is nothing new to learn, no surprises to this place. So when I come home it consistently feels like time has stood still. The fact that the same bag of trail mix I left there last August is still sitting on the coffee table in my basement does not provide a strong argument against this. The people and things I left behind do not seem to make any radical changes in the time that I spend elsewhere.

I love Virginia. I love how familiar things are, the weather, the restaurant menus, the mountains and all of the people that come up and hug me because they've known me since I was born. At the same time whenever I come back I know I cannot stay because it is so stiflingly recognizable. If I come to close to home I feel like I'm falling back into the ruts of a road that I do not particularly want to go down in which I will watch my children's adolescent soccer games alongside people I hated in high school.

Virginia is beautiful but Europe will be here soon enough.