when i was younger, i had this country house in conneticut. in fact, it wasn't just any country house. my family shared it with my father's best friend's family, clara, patrick and their kids: sarah and matthew. in total, there were seven of us plus maggie, my favorite labrador. i don't remember full memories because it seems like there's a blind spot in my mind...it's all...blotchy. humans play tricks on themselves, i've noticed. by the time we're ten or eleven, life isn't all about just sitting on swings trying to see how high you can go. or in my case, making robots out of cardboard and bracelets out of dried glue. life becomes much more complicated. suddenly everything turns into chaos, and each and every memory begins colliding with each other until the mind decides to quietly press the delete button on certain of those reminiscent moments. the one image that i have of connecticut is the railway track. perhaps i remember this specific railway track because i used to take the train every single weekend to get there. however, this track was the local one. it ran through the whole town of kent and running with it, on the sides, were beautiful trees of all different colors. matthew and his friend, cooper, were eight years older than me and somedays i'd go out onto the railway track and just walk down it with them. sometimes matthew would put me in this little red and yellow car and let me ride down the steep hill but just as i thought i'd keep rolling and rolling away, he'd put a stop to it. connecticut felt like my second home. most kids in new york city when their younger spend most of their time playing video games, watching movies, playing with old fashioned game boys etc. but, my mom never let me have any of those things so i had to find stuff to do on my own. i learnt how to ride my first bike in connecticut, as well as i created my very first painting there. i learnt to catch bunnies and feed them as well as butterflies and admire them. when it was rainy or too cold, i'd sit in doors and read or warm myself by the fireplace as i colored on sheets of paper all day. but most of all, i learnt how to run. being a city girl, there's not much space to scream and yell and laugh and just race. but in connecticut, the backyard was the field and the woods were spacious. i competed with the wind and reached out my fingers to touch dandelions and thick country air as i sprinted up and down wherever. i had this dog named maggie, well, she wasn't my dog, but she was their dog. since i was simply a child, i was just about her height. i could spend all day with her if i wanted and somehow, everyone trusted her with me. maggie was one of the most charismatic and beautiful dogs that i'll ever know. she never got angry or temperamental, she was (this is cheesy, i know) in one way or another, my friend.
two years ago, my parents, and my dog, anna and i went to connecticut for a visit. we hadn't been there in over three years. everything had changed. my father's best friend had divorced her husband, patrick. however, he had stayed with the house which i so admirably remember. sarah, the daughter, had moved in with mother about ten minutes away. and matthew was now in college. cooper, had left to california to live with his family. patrick (her husband) was lonely, we could see, and old. but he wasn't the only one, so was maggie. when maggie and anna met, we could immediately see that nothing would be the same. it was the first time i had seen maggie snap. the garage which had originally contained all our bikes, cars and games had turned dusty and reeked of oldness. the magic which the house and the fields had once held an aura of had disappeared along with what the seven of us: clara, patrick, sarah, matthew, my mom, my dad, maggie and i had once held. nonetheless, i was surprised to find that it was easy to let go. i had become somewhat ignorant to the past as i grew older and i had learned to come to terms which what i had become, a city girl. this realization may be something that i may not regret right now but i suppose i will in the future. sarah, whom was two years old than me, had become a teenager, and since i was too, neither one of us really cared much for each other anymore. overall, everything had changed.
today, i found one of the shoes that i owned as a child. it's always been hung on the doorknob of my room but i never really took much notice to it. i always wondered why my mom kept it, though. and today, it inspired to write what i've written for my dear old connecticut. as we get older, memories begin to fade in and out and being alive for only 15 years so far, it shocks me that i cannot even remember things that happened less than five years ago. hoping to live the life time of a regular human being, i have learnt to prepare myself for what i'll forget and remember as i grow older. i've learnt that only certain memories stay with you, certain memories that will change your vision on who you are today. no matter how much you try to avoid amnesia towards your past, it stays with you. it engraves you and stays printed within you until the day you decide to face it. only then, will it become you.
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