Sometimes, I drive back to the neighborhood where I grew up to visit my maple tree. Even though someone else owns it, I still consider it to be mine. I always felt a connection to it. When I was a child, I would lay down in the yard and look up at its leaves. I would whisper my secrets into the air. Its leaves seemed to shiver as it absorbed my words-my secrets forever safe among its boughs. I remember running in circles around its trunk, pretending that it was enjoying our little game of chase, even though it was stationary in the dirt.
The last time I drove down my street, my maple tree was gone. The yard was barren and empty without it. I looked at the spot where the tree used to stand. There wasn’t even a stump to mark that a massive maple tree had once stood there. The yard was just flat grass now. The landmark of my childhood is just a memory now. I realized that I needed that landmark to revisit the home of my childhood. That day I drove down the street, I missed my house, because the tree was gone. I had to circle around the block and start my search again. I found my house the second time I drove down the street, but it doesn’t seem the same now that the tree is gone.
There is an old saying that you can’t go home again. The loss of my tree reminded me of that fact. You really can’t go home again. Even if I bought that little house from my childhood, it wouldn’t be the same as it was when I was little. We grow up and we move on. That is how life is. We are constantly changing. Sometimes, I dream about that little house, but even in my dreams, the house is not the same. Often, my son, Hunter, will be with me, I guess, to remind me that I have important reasons to stay anchored in the present. I might stop now and again to visit the home of my memory but I can never really go back. And, honestly, I wouldn’t want to. I am happy where I am now.
Beginning Again 