Dan Matarazzo, Other 1

When I attended Salisbury University, I would find out that I made the decision to go to place where I knew no one, in an alien environment that I was not accustom to, to a place where I could not grow. The most satisfying feeling I would feel as the year progressed would be the moment every time when I drove home, crossing over the bridge connecting Lovettsville, VA and Brunswick, MD over the Potomac River. It wasn’t the fact that I was home, home was still a couple miles down the road, and it was the change in landscape that truly mattered to me. The river itself was the first thing that hit me; it was not only a metaphor for crossing over from Maryland to Virginia, but also for crossing over the two lives I was living. When I was on the south face of the Potomac River, I was me again, the person I grew up being, not a wondering soul, lost in some alien sea. My favorite part of the way over the river was the Blue Ridge Mountain on the other side. I was raised in those hills, I love being on the base of the mountain, seeing the terrain roll up and down in front of me. At Salisbury, on the peninsula, there was nothing, flat and pointless. I knew once I saw those mountains I was leaving one world and entering another, very few moments can compare to those.