Changin'

I remember the massive piles of leaves we raked up at my family's house in my youth, and I thought all the trees near me produced brown, boring leaves. This memory was part of my excitement at living on a street where the trees all flame orange and red. Who wants boring brown oak leaves when you could have flame red?
Anyway, it seems like everything is changed from what I remember. I woke up this morning in my childhood bedroom and saw a rainbow outside my window: red leaves in Mr. Wilson's yard, though Mr. Wilson moved away like a decade ago. Red leaves in my own backyard, though I don't remember any existing before.

All the yards are still full of screaming children running through leaf piles, but they are not the children I remember playing with. Instead, they are the children of these children. It's very strange for me. Brian's dad is outside pushing Brian's son in a swing. Kelly's dad is running around the yard after Kelly's daughter, both screaming and hiding behind the turtle sandbox that has changed color since I used to hide behind it myself.

I feel really young and sad and removed from all this metamorphosis of memory and reality. Young because, despite my house and husband and job, I don't feel quite like a grown-up because I haven't reproduced. Sad because my kids will live far away and not get to run around on a random Friday with their grandpa while I'm at work. Sad because the tree with the red leaves is the one with some sort of blight, that my parents need to chop down.

It's amazing to me how drab and brown this place seemed when I was growing up, how desperately I needed to get out and live someplace, anyplace else. Now that I am here and see it in vibrant color, see the children of my childhood friends (children who will never know me as I knew their parents), I feel a little forlorn.

Pittsburgh is my home now and I love my life there, but I don't know what I'm going to do without extended family in close proximity.