Time Travel

Do you ever wish you could go back to a certain period of your life for just a little bit? I certainly do. I had a wonderful childhood. Yeah, my parents made mistakes. (Like forcing me to go to my neighbors' parties, or making me have thick, eyebrow-length bangs, or not forcing me to learn how to swim.) But they did some great things too.

We moved a few times when I was a child. One of my favorite homes was a big Victorian home built in 1905. It was pretty junky when we first moved in, but my dad spent thousands of hours remodeling it. Since I was the only girl, I never had to share a room. My bedroom was the very first room to be remodeled. (It pays to be a daddy's girl.) All of my toys were in that room. I could spend hour upon hour in that room playing with Barbies or Polly Pockets (the choking hazard kind) or reading Nancy Drew mysteries. It was right next to my parents' room, so I could make easy pilgrimages to their room after watching a movie that was a little too scary. My brothers always begged to play with me in my room. It drove me crazy. I was always content to play alone. I could be more imaginative that way.

We also had an expansive backyard at that house. My brothers and I decided we would dig an underground church one summer. We dug quite a large hole but couldn't really figure out how we were going to get the dirt back on top of us once we dug it deep enough. Needless to say we never finished it because we had to move the next summer. We also spent hours upon hours with our neighbor playing a game we called "Wonder Woman and Cat Woman." I was Wonder Woman, she was Cat Woman, my brother Kent was Batman, and my other brothers were Ninja Turtles. We would run around the yard essentially solving the same crime over and over again with a few variations here and there. We were so imaginative. I spent most of the time imagining the outfits I was wearing or imagining the boyfriend that I had. Kent would imagine himself ripping the "bad guy" from limb to limb in his typical war-hungry fashion. Our neighbor girl would always be running back home to get some toy. She would say, "Back in a flash!" and return 30 minutes to an hour later. We would sit on the front step patiently waiting the entire time. 

My brother Kent and me

Those were probably the best years of my childhood. I often conjure up images of that house when I'm reading a book about an old house and need a point of reference. I often find myself craving for the simplicity of life back then. Summers spent playing in the backyard all day long. Winters spent watching my dad carve snow sculptures in our front lawn. Afternoons spent pounding out my piano lessons desperate to get back outside. Evenings spent stomping up the stairs to scare away the "bad guys" after reading another Nancy Drew novel. Sometimes I just wish I could rewind my life and spend a few days as a little girl in that big old house. Sometimes I just wish I could recapture the feeling of no pressure, no responsibility. I hope one day my children can have a childhood like mine. Maybe I can live vicariously through them.