I remember springtime in Tennessee. It has only been three years since I moved from Franklin to the middle of nowhere Hamilton, Alabama. I remember how the air would smell different. How the cool breeze felt against my skin in contrast to the warm sun beaming on my body.
There was a tree in our backyard that produced the most beautiful blossoms each year. Growing up in that home, I watched that tree go bare every winter and then bloom again in the spring.
When the weather was just right I would open my window and fall asleep to the hum of crickets.
I wish I could spend another night like that. Tucked away in the carefree hills of Tennessee.
My parents moved out of that house over a year ago. They now live in a neighborhood where the houses sit crammed next to one another.
There are a few saplings growing in the backyard that my Dad planted soon after we moved in. Maybe they’ll bloom like the tree I grew up with.
These days I fall asleep to the sound of my neighbors yelling across the street and police sirens squealing past my bedroom. It was hard to get used to at first but I’ve adjusted.
When I first moved to Alabama, I spent the night wide-eyed in bed, staring at the ceiling. Being on our own for the first time, Anna slept next to me. Two girls in one big house. It felt spacious and void. The sound of the city made me miss home- the quiet country.
The change of seasons used to be so euphoric. Not that it isn’t anymore but it is certainly different.
Autumn is my most favorite time of the year. I come alive when the leaves turn orange. As soon as the weather drops I pull out all the sweaters. Beanie season is my time to shine. Pumpkin bread bakes in the oven, seasonal lattes in hand, football on the television. It is heaven.
Used to be that spring would come and you could feel the anticipation of a school year ending. Teachers began to prepare you to enter the next grade. The homework load got significantly lighter. Summer break was just around the corner and life was peachy.
Summer break used to mean sleeping in till the afternoon. Calling up your friend with the pool and hanging out all day. Then summer break meant finding a summer job. It meant touring colleges and trying to figure out what you were going to do with your life. All while figuring out who YOU are.
Now I work a full-time job and there is no such thing as a summer break.
The seasons are changing and it reminds me of the childhood I have come to frequently miss.
I’ve been in Hamilton for three years although sometimes I feel as though I just arrived.
Here I am at the end of the road for the Ramp School of Ministry. By the end of the month, I will have completed my internship. Crazy how three years flew. Though I am expectant for the next thing in life, I legitimately cannot imagine leaving these amazing people I have met. It is wild to think that I would have never met them if we hadn’t come to this school at the same time.
Seems like only yesterday I was riding in the back seat of my mom’s Jeep Liberty, leaving the carpool line, daydreaming about being an adult. Imagining what it would be like to drink coffee and drive my own car. You know…grown-up things.
People always tell you not to grow up too fast, that you’re gonna miss these days. They say it goes by too fast. Blink and you’ll miss it.
As a kid, I wanted to take their advice and apply it to the best of my ability. Whenever I would dream about being an adult I would remind myself to focus on the now. I kept telling myself that I was going to miss this. What exactly? My third-grade brain did not fully understand but I took their word for it.
And they were right.
My sister and I used to be obsessed with barbie dolls. We spent most of our time dressing them up and brushing their hair. Giving them haircuts until they were pretty much bald…and scary. We played with them every day until we just- stopped. It was months later and they went untouched. I remember us deciding to play with them again but it was different. It felt odd. Anna looked at me while brushing her doll’s hair, “It’s not the same is it?”
Ouch.
The moment you realize you are growing up.
We held a yard sale one summer and a father came by with his little girl. She discovered our box of dolls and was completely enamored. She picked up the barbie with the inflicted bald head and she would not let go. Literally out of all dolls that was the one. The father bought her every single barbie doll we had and she was the happiest girl. I was thrilled for the pocket change made off my old dolls, don’t get me wrong. At the same time, I was grieved to be letting go of such a big part of my childhood. I had witnessed an era of my life end.
I find myself wishing I could go back in time and soak it up all over again.
My Dad dragging me and Anna to work with him in the middle of summer. Riding around town in his black, work truck that had no air conditioning. I had to climb over tools to get to my seat and pick a fight with a drill just to buckle my seatbelt. Anna and I were bored out of our minds, miserable from sweating all day. We would try to make up games on job sites to entertain us while Dad worked on a client’s house. Eventually, we’d stop by a nearby gas station and all get an ice-cold drink to beat the heat. I look back at those times with such fondness.
Sleepovers at Haley’s house. Haley was wild and the complete opposite of me. I was a rule follower and Haley got us both in trouble. She only forced me to be her best friend in Kindergarten (no seriously, I was given no choice) and well it just stuck. Every sleepover we had, that girl would keep me up late and I loathed her for it in the morning. What I would give to spend another night in her pink bedroom watching High School Musical, fighting over who would get to date Zac Efron. Even if it meant staying up way past my bedtime. I don’t do that just for anyone! (When it comes to Zac Efron…it’s me 100%. I mean I look exactly like Vanessa Hudgens!)
Waking up early on Saturday mornings to hunt for yard sales with Mom. If you don’t go early morning the good stuff gets snatched. All my tiny body wanted was to sleep in! It was the weekend! I always found it was worth it though. Worth finding junk we probably did not need but nothing beats the rush of a good bargain. Now Mom gets up early and scouts for yard sales without me. Sometimes I’ll answer a FaceTime call- she shows me something she found. “HEY NAY, DO YOU WANT THIS?”
Yes mama, I do. More than you know.
I know there is no slowing down time. No time machine to take you back and allow you to relive the sweet moments of your life.
It’s only memories stored away until you choose to revisit them.
Though it hurts to recognize what was and what is no more, I am grateful for this consciousness. Are you?
This awareness that this very moment is slipping through your fingers.
A punch in the gut to realize, this is not forever.
It was never going to be for forever.
That’s the only way we can find the future.
However, we have the memories. The stories we tell. The journal entries. The camera rolls. The Spotify playlists that truly say it all.
It won’t last.
So take it in.
