This year we went over the 4th of July and it was quite cool (actually it was nearly 100 degrees) to be in such a historic place on Independence Day. On July 3rd the Union Jack flew as always marking the city as a colony of the British Empire and then on the 4th was replaced with the Stars and Stripes lining both sides of Duke of Gloucester. What's funny though, is that while I was attending W&M, I used to constantly remark on the lack of life the old fogies must have who frequented CW and could even be found wandering about the college grounds. Fast forward 15 years and I'm wandering around the college with my family, remarking how much things have changed and how much is still exactly the same. I'm marveling at the history of the place and trying to get my children interested in the splendor of treading on the same ground as Thomas Jefferson and others who formed our country. Basically, I'm that old fogie with no life. Although, strange as it may have seemed to my twenty year old self, partying, skipping class and hanging out with my girlfriend (that would be my wife now), I have a lot more of a life now than I did back then.
It's true that I don't drink or party. I don't go out much at night anymore and when I do it's usually because a call came in at the firehouse. I don't have plans for Friday night and I was excited when my wife suggested we go to Mount Vernon for father's day. And the thing is, this shift in activity happened with so gradually that there was never a point when I looked at myself (except perhaps right now) and thought, "man, I am so boring. I need to get a life."
So take all that together and it brings me to my latest observation. During this trip to CW, I noticed a shift in my wife and I's attitude toward the place. Although I enjoyed being there and had laugh or two over some of the familiar places, I no longer felt like I had come home. As my wife kindly, but matter of factly pointed out when I asked her, "no, even if I lost forty pounds, got a really close shave and some trendy clothes, no one is going to mistake me for a college student."
Now as an official member of the Peter Pan Complex Club I would have expected this information to be a significant blow, but in fact, I was not at all taken aback. Nor was I hurt or disappointed. You see, home is not at my high school on a football field, or at college wandering amongst co-eds. Home is where my wife is sitting beside me crocheting a blanket and my kids are playing dragons. It's where my dog is curled up by my feet and tonight I will probably fall asleep watching a movie before I make it to bed.
Nostalgia, history, the past, glory days, remember that time when's, they have their place. It's fun to go back and tell stories and reminisce, but when you first realize that you no longer long for those by-gone days. That you no longer wish you could go back and relive those moments, that's the point when true happiness starts knocking at your door. When you realize that memories are simply springboards for the memories yet to come and that home is more than a place but a state of mind.
Next year, I'm sure we might make it down to CW for a visit, probably to go to the big water park or Busch Gardens, but as far as a vacation, I'm thinking maybe the Keys.
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