A trip into the past.
It’s incredible how my view of the world has changed in the last 15 years. When I was young, that was my world. Or rather, that
was one bubble of my world. Other bubbles included my Elementary, Middle, and High School. Oh
yeah, where my family’s restaurant
was.
That was my world. The map above showed the boundaries of where I was willing to travel by myself. The building in the northern
portion of the intersection on the right, that’s where I went to fill up the tire on my bike. The road in the center extending
down from the upper left, that’s Greenwood Street. I used to ride down that hill for fun. The house at the tip of the cul de sac
in the bottom center, that’s where Nawal lived. The house slightly down and to the right, that’s where the Fortune family lived.
I used to play with Mindy. To the right of my house, slightly up and to the right of the Fortune’s house, was the lady that used
to take care of me until my parents could pick me up after school. She later went insane after her divorce. If you look just up
from my house, there’s a dark spot, that’s where our shed was. I can even see the dark spots where the three big pine trees were
in our front yard. There’s also the slightly light rectangle next to one of them where we had a garden. Across the street from
us was the Catholic family with, no joke, 9 kids. I don’t know how they all lived in that house.
Traveling a long distance, back then, was riding my bike five clicks right and one click up to where Adam lived. I travel many times that distance every
day now. I live thousands of times that distance away from there now.
At the time, I hated my parents for moving us away from there. Away from the comfort and safety of knowing where things are because that’s just how they’ve always been. Looking at my life now, though, I’m glad to be out of there.
