Ever gone back and read through old diaries? Well, if any guys read this, you probably can't relate. But you girls know what I'm talking about. The stuff that seemed so important when you were 12 is laughable now; your next door neighbor has moved and doesn't remember half of the embarrassing moments you shared; the time your dog ran out the front door to get chased around the block by a snow plow; the time you told on your guy friend for telling you he loved you and the teacher scolded him; the time you moved across the country; the time you and your best friend memorized "Anne of Green Gables"; the time you snuck out into the park in the wee hours of the morning to look at the stars; Lake Johanna; 5th grade; Jefferson Elementary; the library that was less than a mile walking distance from your house with the cushy, colorful seats; the ice rink your dad built in your backyard; the Beanie Baby houses you made out of grass shavings beneath your favorite tree; the rocks you painted in the shed and sold to your neighbor for 5 cents.... 

I loved my childhood. I really did. I miss the thick grass we had; I remember the day my dad came home with rolls and rolls of sod to lay down. My favorite tree resembled a willow, with droopy, tiny leaves like hair. The deck we had that I would lay on and watch fireworks from the Anoka Park miles away, the moon rise in the evening, the sun beat on in the summer. Our hand prints are in the concrete of that deck. The shed that my dad built and varnished; the ice rink he made; the swing set he constructed that my childhood friend, Ashley, and I would swing on upside down so that we looked like trolls. I miss the first snow of each winter when my mom would wake us up from dreamland and we'd bundle up and go to play in its freshness. I miss my beagle, Jesse. I miss the playground at my elementary school and the nature trail they built behind it that we were privileged to walk through on rare occasions. So much is coming back to me tonight. The past is rising like the moon. It makes me a little sad. 

It makes things now seem so trivial. So, so trivial. Let me be a child again. Let me go back to the house I grew up in. Lord, accept my childlike heart. Revert me back to childlike faith. 

People will not stand in my way. 

On a side note: google "tesseract" and click on the wikipedia link. then think of time.