When I was 5 years old we lived in a mobile home park but it was not just any mobile home park, it was my home. Since I didn’t remember my earliest years, it was the only home I ever knew. I was the luckiest kid in the neighborhood too because right outside my window was the neighborhood playground just a few steps away. My parents could check up on me by just looking out the window. As a 5 year old, that slide looked like the biggest slide I had ever seen and looking back it feels like it was several stories tall. All the kids in the neighborhood would come to my house to play at my playground.
One day I was told that we were moving. We were going from living in the mobile home park to moving into a house. I was devastated because, like I said, that was all I knew. There was the porch where my mom helped convert a box into my own personal fort. There was the back yard where my dad planted a vegetable garden and I learned where carrots came from. This was the home I remember watching my baby brother sleep in his crib as I thought I saw his little eyes open so I yelled to the entire house that he was awake. The dining area where I learned that I didn’t like maple syrup because my dad poured way too much on my french toast. The kitchen where Santa Claus (AKA my grandpa) asked me on the phone what I wanted for Christmas. The living room where I watched Saturday morning cartoons and discovered that I loved Mickey Mouse as I watched reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club.
On my last day I walked from room to room crying as I said goodbye to each area of the house. I even went outside in the back yard to say goodbye to the bushes and the trees. I said goodbye to the slide that was on the other side of the chain link fence. It was exciting to be moving into a house but this was my home and I had to leave it for good.
There are many phases we go through in life. There are people in our lives for a season that make us better people and help us see life from different perspectives. There are places that represent seasons that we can’t go back to. It is okay to mourn these changes. Just like the fact that you have to trim the tree to help it become more beautiful next season, you need to be trimmed to help you become the person you were meant to be in the season to come. There is pain in these changing of seasons. It’s okay to cry.
Are you having a hard time letting go of things in your past? Honor those seasons by learning to let go. If you need to cry then cry. But always remember those special people and those special places from your past. Allow them to give you joy today as you look back. Even if they aren’t with you now, they will always be with you because they helped make you who you are today.