"I think what I like most about this place, is that I've learned who I don't want to be." Our sport utility vehicle sped past a row of flags marketing the new shiny model homes as my mother chuckled in acknowledgment. Haymarket, Virginia wasn't always a showroom; it was rolling fields of farmers' toil, it was a textbook photograph of the deciduous forests of the Piedmont Region. This was my childhood domain, the top of what could only be, to my juvenile eyes, the highest peak. Bull Run Mountain: a developing child's paradise. The sprawling acres of woods were my playground, home to countless adventures. I suppose I considered myself quite the transcendentalist, searching for God and white tailed deer alike. Before the communicable disease of suburban sprawl found us, I had few friends my own age and species, and fewer still that lived near me. As a result, I breathed my secrets into the open hearts of nature. My connection to the earth was precious and holy.
I carried this sentiment as I began to step down from my elevated sanctuary to meet the world below. As I grew older, Haymarket simultaneously developed. It did not take long, however, for my little town to outgrow me. I watched, dumbfounded, as banks of houses rose up across the untapped river of resources Haymarket provided. I found that my beloved wilderness was quickly diminishing with the harsh uniformity of developers' gates. Behind them existed a universe that enticed me. I was welcomed in, I felt safe and secure inside the Land Rover Jungle. Suburbanization provided me with nothing but opportunity. My homogeneous country school grew to become ethnically, if not economically, diverse. A community that valued hard work, academics, and success grew around me, nurturing and molding me.
At the end of each day though, my mountain was always there. As I would drive up and away from the competitive cloud where I spent my days, I would fall into a sense of quiet peace. Before I could succumb to sleep at night, I could not help but wonder- was I betraying my beloved wilderness? To say that the flashy wheels of my friend's Jaguar were not, at one point, as equally tempting as the thought of finding my own Walden would be dangerously insincere. I am not one way. I am the merging of ideas, I am purple. Haymarket -a dichotomy itself, representing its agrarian past while looking ahead to its commercial future- has made me this way. I could not be more thankful for this dual upbringing. With the industrial world at my feet, and Mother Nature on my back, I feel confident and capable enough to help reconcile both worlds. I hope to make as positive an impact as has been made on me.
