I'm on a vacation right now to my hometown in southern Connecticut. Partly because the past few months has been a nightmare and I've been wanting a vacation to relax and see a beautiful part of New England, and partly as a way of getting some emotional closure. I'm a much different person now than I was back in 2003. I love who I've become, but I still have a lot of good memories of my life back then, and recognize that my time there shaped me as a person maybe more than anywhere else. So here I am on memory lane, trying to reconcile who I was with who I am now.
As I was walking down my old home street, neurons furiously filling in the mental model of the space which have developed holes over the decades, I noticed an abandoned scooter leaning against a tree on the edge of the woods. It was the exact same model, color, and size scooter I used to ride down this exact same street over 2 decades earlier. The scooter was slowly covering in rust and dirt as if it hadn't been used past when I moved away, but its handlebar grips and label somehow still looked pristine. As much as my brain told me that it's impossible that it was actually my old scooter, my heart kept my focus on it - like staring at a ghost unmoored in time.
I couldn't help but smile at the wayward ghost of my childhood as I walked back on my way.
