Beneath the Same Sky

Last week, after dropping my daughter off with a friend, I found myself with time to spare just a few miles from the neighborhood where I grew up.

I hadn't driven through it in at least ten years, so I figured, “What the hell?”

As I drove, I caught myself narrating the experience:

"That Schnucks is still there."

"Looks like they tore down the Subway."

"Those potholes still need to be fixed."

I smiled as familiar streets came back to me. I still knew the way to my old house. You know how your brain somehow remembers every street, even years later? 

Some homes sat empty with boarded-up windows and grass almost as tall as the mailbox. Others looked just as loved as I remembered. My elementary school still stood proudly, and the neighborhood park still echoed with kids playing.

I finally came upon my house. The one that raised me as much as the people inside it. 

I remembered the fence in the backyard and how my dad built it by hand—board by board.

I wondered if the handprints my brother and I left in the concrete by the shed were still there, or if there was still a pool in the backyard. 

As I sat there, the house looked so different. The same structure. The same windows. The same driveway. But somehow, it looked so much smaller than I remembered.

I feel like that is a common occurrence: People feeling like their childhood home seems much smaller when going back to visit. 

The house hadn't changed nearly as much as I had.  What once held my entire world now fit inside a glance from the driver's seat.

I could still picture myself playing on my Gameboy in my bedroom, blowing out birthday candles around the dining room table, laughing until I couldn't breathe during basement sleepovers, ice skating in the backyard after that one ice storm, and locking my little brother out of my room because I wanted my own "space."

Those walls held so much joy.

But they held heartbreak too.

I could still picture the couch where I was sitting when someone told me my brother was gone. I could still picture myself hiding behind my bed on nights when I was afraid.

Those memories lived there too.

All of it—the laughter, the uncertainty, the loss, the ordinary days in between—still fit inside that little house.

I paused for another minute before putting the car in drive trying to take in the nostalgia I was feeling.

After leaving the house, I started driving another familiar route—a road that led to the neighborhood ice skating rink, a place I'd probably driven to hundreds of times throughout my childhood.

It was dusk, and as I rounded the curve, the outline of the moon began to appear in the evening sky.

I thought about how many times I had made that same drive to one of my favorite places. How many times that same moon had quietly followed me there...and back home again.

And there it was.

The very same moon.

Peeking out at me...

as if no time had passed at all.

As if it was saying,

"I remember you."

In that moment, I realized something.

I wasn't just revisiting the neighborhood where I grew up. I was remembering the girl who grew up there.

The girl who loved her friends, the girl who sang for crowds, the girl who got excited about cheap jewelry and trendy clothes… the girl who believed the world was waiting for her.

As I drove through the parking lot, memories kept finding me.

There was the pool where I worked my very first job as a day camp counselor.

There was the lobby where I spent countless hours waiting to skate, conditioning off the ice, and laughing with my friends. It was also the place where my mom took one last picture of me on the day the rink closed its doors for good. I don't think either of us realized then that we weren't just saying goodbye to a building. We were saying goodbye to a place that had quietly shaped so much of my childhood.

Even the little room in the corner held pieces of my childhood. It was where we gathered for team pictures and parties, but years before that, it had been my preschool classroom.

It’s so remarkable how an ordinary building can quietly hold so many versions of you.

I guess that's true of a lot of places we don't think much about until we go back. 

As I continued through the parking lot, I looked over a hill. The sky looked like it had been painted in watercolor. 

Streaks of orange and pink stretched across the horizon while the moon quietly hung above it, like they both decided to share the same stage for a few minutes.

It literally stopped me. I had to pull over.

And I did what I always do: I reached for my phone and took a picture.

Not because a picture could ever really capture it, but because I wanted to remember how it made me feel.

Maybe that's what going home gives us—not a chance to become who we used to be, but a chance to recognize the parts of ourselves that never left.  Beneath the jobs, the titles, the heartbreak, the mistakes, the victories, and all the years that have passed, the person we used to be is still there.

That evening, I drove through streets that once shaped so much of who I am. I found a house that looked smaller than I remembered, a neighborhood that had weathered time while still holding onto joy, the same moon that once followed me home from the skating rink, and a sunset that reminded me there is still beauty ahead.

Going back home isn't just about remembering who you were. It's about realizing that the little girl or little boy who first dreamed big, loved deeply, and believed anything was possible never completely disappeared. They're still walking beside you...beneath the same sky.

Before You Go...

Every story has a lesson hidden inside it.

Here's mine from this chapter:

Sometimes going home isn't about revisiting a place. It's about rediscovering a part of yourself you thought had been left behind. The places that shaped us don't just hold our memories—they remind us of our resilience, our joy, our heartbreak, and the pieces of ourselves that have quietly stayed with us through every season of life.

My Question for You:

Is there a place that instantly takes you back to a younger version of yourself? If you went there today, what do you think it would remind you about who you've always been?