I thought I'd escape the "Charlottesville itch" (as one of my friends calls it) this year. Apparently, I was wrong. In fact, I even commented to someone a week or two ago about how I was doing really well with it this year. However, this weekend has changed all that.
The "Charlottesville itch" is something that only really happened for the first time last fall. See, I was born in Charlottesville, VA. I only lived there for 5 years, but for whatever reason, I've grown to love it immensely. In the falls of 7th and 9th grade, my family spent a weekend there, so my brother could look at UVA and so we could go to football games (my dad went to UVA undergrad and my mom went there for grad school). Well, last year, around the beginning of September, I had this immense longing to go back. At first, I thought it was just the sense of fall coming. But then I realized that I didn't just want it to be fall, I wanted it to be fall in C'ville. I -needed- to get back there for a visit. I even had one planned, but it fell through. And so, I was left with...well, a void. Unless you've looked off into the distance from Monticello, or sat on the hill for a football game at Scott Stadium, or peeked into Edgar Allen Poe's dorm room or walked across the lawn up to the Rotunda, all in the middle of October, you've not really experienced life. And so, you can't really understand what I went through.

Or rather, what I'm going through. For whatever reason, I thought I'd be ok this year. But I'm not. It all came back this weekend. Part of it was the gardens. Part of it was the football. Most of it was the weather. And the sad thing is, it's only gonna get worse when conference games start and I start wearing longsleeves all the time and the leaves start turning. Going to Harrisonburg the first of November won't help either. And the sad thing is, I think it would all go away if I could just go up there, even for a day, this fall. But even if my parents would let me, I have no free weekends to do so. This is my last fall at home, the last fall within driving distance to C'ville. If I don't make it this fall, I don't know that I'll ever get rid of it.
- thoughts provided by Katey Orr @ 6:15 PM