Virginia is For ... Lovers?-->

So, I’m back in Front Royal, VA for a couple weeks to visit family. I missed them so I’m happy to be back here but I always have mixed feelings about being here. It’s where I grew up and I have a substantial amount of family here on my father’s side and some on my mother’s side. But it’s also a place I feel very uncomfortable about. My time here during my youth always made me feel less than great. There were many temptations to do wrong here because there was absolutely nothing to do here for young people except get in to drugs, play sports (which I didn’t) and generally get in to trouble. I was a high school drop out and didn’t find my true greatness until I left my hometown and struck out on my own. It was quite difficult in general to be anything coming from such a place. The environment of the town, my place on the socioeconomic ladder growing up and the people I hung out with all suggested I would grow up to be a loser. However, I was better in spite of growing up here.

I can’t deny where I’m from as that would be to deny who I am. Both my girlfriend and I are from here so we both have family here. However, I can’t help but feel okay about keeping a longer period of time between my visits here and making them as short as I can. But this time I haven’t been here in about 7 months and it would be selfish of me to stay away when my family hasn’t really seen my 2 year old son in that time. It’s disruptive to my business to be here as well as my temporary office is way less than ideal so I don’t focus nearly as well.

Many will think I’m being too hard on my home town or that everybody feels this way about their home town. Maybe so, I’m not cutting my home town any slack. The people in charge kept this town difficult to grow up in for a long time. They pushed away anything that could stimulate growth and fought progress to keep our town touristy which means they robbed the youth of my generation from any type of joy we would have had from things to actually do for young people in Front Royal. A special thanks to the town council and mayors of yesteryear for that bullshit.

I’ve always said I would invest in my home town when I became able to do so. I’m very close to being able to do so and I would love to invest in this town so maybe one less child will go through the mind numbing chaos of not being able to choose where your parents decide to raise you at. So, over the next 2-5 years it’s my goal to be able to invest in Front Royal and make it a better for people forced to grow up here and the people who have chosen to raise their children in this sleepy Civil War historic town that just recently got some balls and decided to grow.

This makes me very careful about where I choose to raise my son at long term. I’ve said that I would not raise my son in Nashville and I probably won’t no matter how much Nashville grows on me. I want to raise my son in a place where I would want to grow up. As any good father I want my son to have the things that I didn’t have as a child and I believe this is essential for a child.

So, for 2-3 weeks I will be grazing around Front Royal, talking to old friends and enjoying my family. I’m not thrilled about being here but I am happy to see my father, grandmother and some a couple close friends. Maybe one day I will be proud of this town or at least satisfied with what it becomes. But I am a bit salty about my youth here and that taste will be hard to get out of my mouth.