Perspectives change as time passes

1. My nephews' trophies. MVPs for the win.
2. Super oldie but goodie of me and my cousin.
3. The backyard of the neighborhood I grew up in.
4. The front yard of the neighborhood I grew up in.
5. My youngest nephew and his ex-bae.
6. Cruising through the skies on the way back to ATL.

I wasn't expecting to visit Michigan this year, but it was great to be home. After a bumpy ride into Detroit, my flight landed at 9pm, and I was greeted with blasts of cold, midwest air upon my arrival. It was a warm and sunny 73 degrees (Fahrenheit) when I left Atlanta, and even though I was prepared for the cooler temperatures - I bought a new coat and everything - the wind hit me way harder than I expected.

Despite everything, it was a good trip. I my oldest sister lives in my childhood neighborhood, so I took a walk around my old stomping grounds for old time's sake. It's amazing how big everything looks when you're a child. My old front porch used to be big enough for board games and wide enough to hold all my kindergarten secrets. Now it hardly looks large enough to stand on. The sidewalk out front used to be my favorite place to ride my bike. Us neighborhood kids would gather sticks and bricks to use as "speed bumps" while we played 'Red-Light-Green-Light,' and it always seemed like it'd take forever to get to the end of the sidewalk. The townhouses seemed taller, the railing above the street seemed longer, and even the parking lot looked like it could fit all the cars in the subdivision. It doesn't look that way anymore. When I walked past the side of the house to the hill we'd used to sled down in the winter, and pretend to be TLC members during the summer (I was always Chilli, and Waterfalls was our favorite song to "perform"), it just seemed tiny in comparison to how it used to be. Everything seemed so much smaller.

It's cool how our perspectives change as time passes.

It's also not cool when your family members bring out all the old & embarrassing photos from your golden years. Like that one yearbook picture where your grandma did your hair, and she had absolutely no idea what she was doing, or the snapshots from when you had your front two teeth missing, because they both decided to come out at the same time. That's one of the reasons my heart melted when I saw that photo of my nephew and his previous boo.

I couldn't get a boo if my life depended on it when my two front teeth were missing!

♥