The Minimalist's Guide to Life: My Farewell Letter to Martinsville

There are murmurs of hope for the future, but right now, it is not enough for the creative young to stay and give back: their motivations lie elsewhere, just like mine.

A year later, this statement still rings true.

The newly renovated Henry Hotel, which serve as apartments now.

While uptown, I overheard one of the storeowners mention to a customer how things have improved in recent years, but have they really?

Because once again, I was at an uptown event aimed at bringing customers in and saw no one in sight (There was technically people at the Farmer's Market but not at the sidewalk sale).

I didn’t want to go to this event, but my sister had this big smile on her face when she very sweetly asked me to go with her, a rarity for her, so I said yes.

I hadn’t left the house in more than a week, and I’d been waking up at 2:00 p.m., so I thought it’d be nice to walk around uptown and create a follow up essay to the one I wrote last year. I almost decided not to go when I struggled to wake up at 10: 30 a.m., but I wanted to be a good sister, which I would fail at later any ways, so I went.

In Charlottesville, you can find crab cakes, tacos, Cuban food, Filipino food,

etc. at the farmer's market. At the Martinsville farmer's market, they give

you a frickin' cucumber. At least it was free.

When we arrived to the Farmer’s Market uptown, we learned that the scavenger hunt was simply going to every open vendor and asking the vendor about his/her stand. Sounds like a good idea, right? Except, the vendors didn’t even wait for us to ask them about their merchandise. They just started giving us the charms—the scavenger hunt booty—and most of them didn’t even know what was going on or why they were giving charms away.

It quickly became awkward, and my sister and I just started asking if the vendor was part of the scavenger hunt to get the charm.

After we circled the block and my sister realized that I wasn’t having it, we returned to our starting point for our prize (My sister actually thought they would run out of gift bags when we got there—like people were actually going to participate—LOL). We had actually missed three spots, but I wasn't going to continue walking anymore, so we lied when the ladies running the stand asked us if we had gone to all the spots—a little white lie that most of the participants probably told, but we were UVa. students, so it hurt my soul to tell that lie (So in addition to being in a horrible mood, I had also broken the honor code—although I did admit—albeit quietly—later that we had missed three spots. I am George Washington; I cannot tell a lie).

Like the city of Martinsville, we were hoping the Uptown Sidewalk Sale and Scavenger Hunt could revitalize us.

Instead, it made us even more depressed and look for a way out because in addition to my motivations, my life force now also lies elsewhere.