Ah nostalgia. My nostalgia is almost always associated more with my single digit years than my teens.

I remember playing kick the can late into the night. Red rover and Cross the River in the alley by my friend's house. There was a huge wall made of large rocks that we used to climb at least 30 feet high. Like Chuck has mentioned it has sunk into the ground and is now only about 6 feet tall. I remember refighting the great battles of World War II right there in Rapid City South Dakota.

I remember sledding. I remember flying off the cliff at the bottom of the run thinking I would die (the cliff is about three feet high and I survived all the times I flew off it). I remember digging snow tunnels in the drifts after a blizzard. The brightness of the night when snow was lightly falling. The comfort of our shag carpet after I took the trash out, in the snow, barefoot.

I so fondly remember going to sleep in a cold, cold, basement bedroom, covered by heavy blankets that engulfed me like a comforting cacoon of warmth while the Christmas lights blinked softly outside my frosted window. Waking, still in the same position to my mom playing Christmas carols upstairs. I fondly remember the anticipation I felt then for Christmas which has so long been replaced by jaded expediency.

It is good sometimes to remember but I don't find it melancholy I find it so refreshing. Yes, I would pay a great deal to go back again for a time, but only for a time because I am also busy now making memories that I can look back on later as well.