I took a vacation this summer. An actual get-in-your-car-and-leave-the-state
vacation, which is so unlike me.
Apparently I needed it though as several people at work commented that
they were glad when I was leaving town. Um…now that I think about it, maybe
they were sending me a different message than the one I interpreted. Hmmm…
Either way, I packed up my Impala and hit the interstate, trekking
from South Carolina to Virginia, back to the town I grew up in. I moved out of this town 29 years ago, right
before I started high school, but I’ve been back a couple of times since then
to visit a friend. She doesn’t live there anymore, but I know a few folks who
do, so the plan was to see them, see the area, visit places in Richmond and
then move on to see another friend or two in Newport News. For the most part, it all worked out, but
unfortunately I did not get to see some of my friends. Maybe one day we’ll connect
again face-to-face. I hope so!
This probably isn’t most people’s idea of a vacation, but
you see, I never grew up taking vacations.
Every year, at Thanksgiving and Easter, my parents would pack up their
big, green Oldsmobile with 2 kids, 2 dogs and a cooler full or sandwiches and
snack size Snickers and Milky Way bars and make the trip down I-95 back to SC,
where they were both from, to visit the family.
I don’t think any of us really enjoyed those trips because, hello, 2
young kids and 2 dogs plus 8 or more hours of driving (and doubtless the kids’
complaining) doesn’t make for the happiest of times. But as my father said
later on in my life, it was a free vacation and that’s how the grandparents got
to see us, so off we went. It was a vacation
we could afford, so outside of annual outings to Busch Gardens and Kings
Dominion, that’s the only kind of vacation I grew up knowing. To this day, it’s a challenge for me to go
somewhere for a vacation. I don’t have
much money to spend to begin with, so spending it on a vacation isn’t the first
thing I think of. However, having
previously discussed with some friends about mutually wanting to see each
other, I finally made plans for this trip and it only took me 2 years to follow
through.
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| I was raised in a VERY pink and green, late 70s bedroom. Can you dig it? |
The drive up took longer than I had planned, but I arrived
on a Saturday evening and took a look around town. It’s not a big town, so that
didn’t take too long, although I didn’t drive all over the place. Unfortunately, I decided to drive past my old
house and it was just, well, sad.
Really, really sad. The people
who own it now don’t seem to take good care of the place – at least on the
outside – and I’m not sure I would want to see the inside. The last time I was there I knew that the
place didn’t look so great, but I guess my memories dulled. The neighborhood is still a nice,
middle-class place with nice homes and yards (for the most part), but I know my
mother would be sad at the state of the yard since she loved gardening and put
a lot of work into her yards over the years.
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| One snowy winter day with my neighborhood friend David. |
Obviously this is someone else’s home now and they can do
whatever they want to do, so I moved on and lamented over it a bit, but chose to put
the current state of things into a box and dump it in the trash. Why?
Because it’s not my home anymore and I have such good memories of my
home. I’m not letting go of that good stuff
just because of some bad stuff. No way!
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| That spruce tree behind us is a LOT bigger now than it was about 40 years ago. |
My parents were the first owners of that house and some of
the first people in that new neighborhood period. The trees are bigger now and a lot of people have
moved out. I recognized things and
places, but it was also confusing. That’s
my house, but yet, it’s not my house. It’s
not the house I grew up in, even if the bones of the structure are still
there.
That’s what I found out about the whole town. It’s the town
I grew up in, but yet, it’s not my hometown.
For years, I’ve protested in my mind that I am from Virginia, not South
Carolina. If asked, I say, “I was born
and raised in Virginia, but I’ve lived in South Carolina for a long time.” I remember being so excited when my parents
talked about moving. I like change and new things and new people and it’s easy
when you are a kid to forget how change is going to affect you. How it might be a challenge to make new
friends or learn about new places. How
things will be different. I loved
growing up in my small town and while it is still small now, it’s grown a lot
over the years. But it’s not where I am
from. Not anymore.
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| This whole photos screams "It's the 1970s!!" I can even tell you with 99% accuracy what I am eating out of that bowl, if anyone is interested. |
I didn’t set out on this trip with any dedicated notions of “finding
myself” or having any great revelations, but I knew when I set off that I
needed to go “home” as an adult. I
thought to myself about a previous trip with my father for a friend’s wedding
and how he was driving and I was the passenger. I said to myself, “Things look
different in the driver’s seat than they do in the passenger’s seat.” I was
speaking about how the landscape literally can look different if you are the
driver versus the passenger, but it’s quite a true statement about life in
general. It’s active versus
passive. This time I needed to be active
and then I found out it’s not my home.
That little town isn’t where I’m from. It’s not the place that molded
and shaped me into the person I am today.
It was a great place to grow up and likely still is, but it’s not my
home.
That was a hard realization to take, even though I am sure I
knew it deep down already. I’m glad I
went – and gladder still for the friends I was able to see and sad over those I
did not get to see – but I’m not ever going back again. I pulled out of the
hotel parking lot my last day there and in my heart I bid that town a farewell
and yes, I even cried a little bit. That’s
what you do when you put something aside and move on I guess. I doubt anyone noticed, but several days
later, after I was home, I even removed that town as being where I am from on
Facebook. You know nothing is ever
official until it happens on Facebook right?
I am so glad I took the time to get away for a while, see
friends and family, visit one of my favorite states – how can you not love all
the history that abides in the great state of Virginia?!?! - and get some time away from work. I came back
with a peace that I didn’t know I was looking for, but found anyway. And now I am ready to acknowledge that I am “from” South
Carolina. It’s the state that really
raised me, after all.
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| Sitting in the backyard swing with one of our dogs, Riddles, in the spring of 1982, 3 years before we would move out of Chester, VA. |
