There is a public park in my county that is about as important to me as any public park could possibly be. I lived in the same town for the first 5 years of my life. We moved to Pennsylvania for the start of 1st grade and then back to Virginia before 4th grade. So for about 15 years of my life, I have lived near Deep Run Park. The first time I had ever been there was in my junior year of high school.
I had a very interesting group of friends in high school. It’s not that we were socially inept and isolated from the rest of our student body, it’s just we did not really associate ourselves with many people outside of our tight knit circle. While I won’t spend a lot time covering the commonness of certain vices in our lives, I would just like to point out that my friends and I liked to experience the world with different mindsets. Although many people may tell you this is possible and just as rewarding while sitting inside; that is simply not true.
Deep Run Park was our little slice of wilderness that we could rely on when we just wanted to go nowhere. Since there is not a lot of toleration to teenagers loitering outside their cars in grocery store parking lots, we often had to retreat to the park to escape the judgement of the plethora of soccer moms and senile elders that populated our suburban town.
Whenever I reminisce about Deep Run Park, a particular day immediately comes to mind. It was probably the second half of my junior year, but I’m not really sure. I was with two of my best friends, Spencer and Ethan. We decided that we were going to spend the majority of our day in the confines of Deep Run Park. We planned to explore as per usual. But this time we decided to bring art supplies and sketchbooks. I will never forget dipping a brush into a creek and using for watercolors. It is unknowable if any of the art we produced that day was good or not. Regardless, just the memory of that day can turn a bad mood around. When I think about that day or the landscapes of Deep Run Park we all know by heart, it reminds me of a time in my life where I was beginning the process of figuring out the difference between who I thought I was and who I actually am. Considering my current state of happiness, I severely underestimated the comforts and contentment I was exposed to back then. If I could go back in time and talk to my 17 year old self, I would tell him to really and thoroughly enjoy such a simple and carefree time of your life.
Some of my friends and I will go back to Deep Run Park every so often. It’s still always a relaxing outing, but sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever feel the same way I did back then within the woods of that park. I will always connect Deep Run Park with what will seem like such a fleeting moment by the end of my life. I don’t want to perceive it as such, but when I look back, it was such a short period of my life that in reality, contained a lot of maturation and productive self-awareness.
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