Going Home again

I went home this past weekend. Well not home to where I currently live, but home to where I grew up. I wasn't alone this time, I took Mie with me, I showed her my little piece of history. The house that I grew up in, the street where we played, fought, partied and struggled with loss. It's changed dramatically, the street which seemed like my whole world as I was growing up, the area which was my own little micro universe, vast and expansive when I was single digits in age running around bare chested with my barefeet, now seemed so small and almost confining. Since leaving there I've lived in 3 different states, two on either end of California, the other in the central states area only to eventually move back to my home state. 

I showed her the schools which were huge when I was going to them, now they are so tiny. Places that I hung out at with friends in middle and high school are now gone, the local pizza parlor where we would go every Wednesday night for their all you can eat pizza or to see or be seen by that special person who stirred those strange feelings for the first time in our young hearts or a little lower, the Rexall drug store where we would go to get the 5 cent candies, the local liquor store where we would play the cutting edge video games like Galaga and Zaxon or Centipede as they had just come out, even the place with the best breakfasts and burgers in the world. The places where we grew up knowing in our own little microcosm, gone... lost to the housing jungle where 72 houses were put on less than 5 acres of memories. To say the least, that was heart breaking.

I even took her to the hill where it seemed like most of my friends stole their first kiss while looking out over the lights of the valley. All of this brought back a flood of memories, including the first day that I walked MG to the same kindergarten classroom that I attended, my teacher, Mrs Carter long since retired, but my first day of school still fresh in my mind.

I had fun showing Mie around, pointing out things that I thought were important and some of the fun little memories associated with each place.