Thoughts on Herndon

Yesterday was Jimmy’s 15th Annual Golf Tournament to Support the Council for the Arts of the Herndon.  This is one of the three events every year that I volunteer at – the other two being the Taste of the Town and the beer booth at the Herndon Festival.  This year has been a strange year for volunteer events because I go into every one of them thinking that it’s going to be my last one since my mother is retiring from the Council at the end of this year.  And every event, I somehow manage to get roped into staying for at least another year.

Now that the golf tournament is over though, I’m taking stock in what I actually want to do with my life, and by default, my vacation time.  (Since these events universally require me to take vacation from my day job.)   The truth is, I kind of, now that the events are all over – want nothing to do with Herndon anymore.

It’s weird in a way, because Herndon has been my hometown, my home base, my entire life.  I always knew that I could come back to it, and it would always be there.  Now, I’m there – but want absolutely nothing to do with it.   I’m not sure where this hatred for Herndon came from – I think a large part of it is how everyone we knew handled the break up.  (I became the pariah – when it totally should have been the other way around.)  Another part is that my parents are going be there anymore past this winter – the house I grew up in won’t be my house anymore.  I won’t have family there.

But then there’s that other part of me that feels like it’s just time to move on.

If I’m going to spend my time volunteering – I want it to be doing things I want to do.  Most of the stuff I was doing in Herndon is because I had always done it – since I was a teenager.   But there was other stuff I did as a teenager that I don’t do anymore because I had to cut out some things I did to make room for a real job.  For instance, I want to get back into therapeutic riding – where you help physical disabled or mentally handicapped ride horses.  I used to love doing that – and I don’t know why I haven’t called the barn in Leesburg to make it happen except I’m hoping I get a little more settled before I commit.  I’d like to teach children web technologies in my spare time – maybe do a clinic.  There’s a million things I could be doing with my volunteer time – and none of them involve Herndon.

And it’s not just that – I want to move on with the rest 0f my life.  I want to get married – have a kid of my own – and I don’t want them to grow up in Herndon.  I prefer some area like West Virginia for that – because it’s similar to how I grew up.  Herndon just isn’t the same as it was when I was a kid – the people are meaner, more fickle.  There’s nothing good left in that town anymore – at least that I can see.

I guess that’s what this post is then – official notice to the people in Herndon that I’m done.  I’ll probably do the beer booth next year because I committed to it already – but that’s it.