We’re the Lucky Ones

Early this morning, as the town was just waking up, Henry and I took a walk. We sauntered through the morning haze past the high school where I work, the same high school where I learned and grew into the person I am now as a teenager. We ambled past the empty stadium, the same stadium where I trumpeted away during countless football games. The same stadium where I played my first solo in eighth grade marching band, alone in the middle of the green field, facing a full set of bleachers. We walked past the junior high where I met my husband. We walked past the Blue & White Snack Bar where we used to go for snacks and soda during band camp back when we were thirteen. It’s funny to think that back then, I had no way of knowing that fourteen years later, I would pass by with my mastiff, married to the same boy I met at the art table.

We walked through the town, listening to church bells ring, saying hi to some lonely joggers. We saw kids on bikes, we saw some wispy clouds.

But mostly, we just walked, the silence a kind retreat from the chaos of everyday life.

I’ve heard so many classmates say, “I can’t wait to ditch this stupid, boring town.” I’ve seen pity in the eyes of others who can’t believe my husband and I have decided to be “lifers” in Hollidaysburg.

But as Henry and I walked this morning, as we took in the sights of our sleepy, quiet town, I thought about how wrong those people are to pity us. We are the lucky ones. We get to call this charming town home. We get to keep making memories in the same place where it all started. We get to learn and grow and laugh in the town where both of us have roots.

We get to walk our lanky mastiff past the places that built us into the people we are, that set our journey toward where we are now on fire.

For that, I will always be grateful.

Lindsay Detwiler, Voice of Innocence