This morning I took my littlest swimming. It was to a recreation centre where I learned to swim when I was a kid. It was right across from the elementary school I went to. Also, right beside the street I used to live on.
As I pulled into the parking lot, memories of school mornings came flooding back. Trying to make it inside before the bell. Waving down friends in the distance who are still running to catch up.
I was really early so I decided to go for a walk. Get some exercise. I walked to the street I used to live. When I got to the entrance of the street, I slowed my pace down. Soooo many memories came flooding into my mind as if I had just released a damn that was holding them all captive in my head. Random tid bits from my childhood. Walking that same path with a huge freezie in the dog days of summer. Walking to school on a bitter cold winter day trying to unfreeze all the frozen boogers in my nose by breething into my scarf. Walking home from school debating whether I was going to have pizza or chocolate chip cookies for my snack.
As I walked down the street, all the houses were still the same. Maybe a tree gone here or there from someone’s front lawn but the houses were still the exact same. I passed the house where I used to get babysat. I believe they still live there but it was too early to go knock on the door. And what would I say, I had no clue.
I came to the house I grew up in. The entrance is actually at the side of the house, but the gate we had is gone and you could see right into the backyard. Our tree was one of the ones that had been removed. And a bush going down the driveway had been removed too. The backyard was still the same. Same patio stones, same layout. I noticed they had replaced the windows. They would have obviously had too. Looking at the front I noticed they kept the cement borders that went around the small garden. I remembered the day I buried my pet hamster there. I cried and cried and my dad told me I was silly but when he saw how truly heart broken I was, he helped me wrap it up and bury it. My dad. So many memories of my dad and me when I was just a little girl are in that house. In that driveway. In that backyard. I was such a daddy’s little girl. It was so surreal to be looking at that house now with my little one in front of me. In my mind, I could hear Gloria (my best friend while she lived on that street) yelling from her yard, asking when I was going to come play barbies. I could hear the great dane barking from beside Gloria’s house.
I started crying. In the middle of the street, just standing there with my stroller- crying. I cried hard. I cried because of how many things I remembered. How many emotions I felt just standing there on that street, in front of that house. I was a little girl the last time I stood there. I was a little girl who dreamt of one day growing up and being a mom and a teacher.
And there I stood, grown up and a mom and I guess you could say a teacher too. Grown up but still with the heart of that little girl.
