I feel like I almost just read my childhood being typed back to me.
When I was about 6 years old, my mom, step-dad and my brother all moved from the city out to the country. On the obverse, it was my moms idea to get out of the city so we could go to a better school and also have a place to play that wasn't a sidewalk.
The house was really old, but well built. It was built in 1852, just a few years before the Civil War. On the property there were a few barns that were used as a butchers shop and a few other things, but I can't really remember what they were. There was a lot of places to get lost with my brother and I can't even begin to describe the joys I had growing up there. My parents worked hard to keep that house for us, and unfortunately as a result, they were never home. So my brother and I were latchkey kids, and we got in a great deal of trouble on that farmette, but we survived.
My mom always wanted farm animals so at one point we had a bunch of rabbits, some goats, a few sheep, and some chickens wandering around out back and my brother and I got to take care of them every day. It taught us a lot about responsibilities.
Every year for Christmas, my step-dad took my brother and I out to dig out a live tree from a tree farm and take it home. After Christmas was over, we planted the tree back in the yard along the property lines.
In the end, my mom and my step dad got a divorce. It was the late 90s and I just finished high school, and my mom and I moved into an apartment and my brother went off on his own. I thought I would never have days like that again and I often found myself taking trips out to the countryside to see the house again.
And, you're right, it doesn't look the same. It barely feels the same.
Some guy painted weird messages on the barns. All the beautiful plants my mom worked so hard at over the years were torn out. The driveway where I used to do burnouts in my parents cars when they weren't home had been paved over, and the tire marks were no longer visible. The trees we planted each Christmas were still along the property line and it was beautiful to see them standing so tall.
We had left our mark as much as the girl smoking before you did.
And I never thought there would be days like that again.
Then I got married.
Then I had a kid.
Then we got a house.
Then we started making those memories again.