Childhood Remembrance

Have you ever looked back at your childhood and realized that those things you most disliked are some of your fondest memories now? When I was young, my dad would take me out to my grandparents' farm on most Saturday mornings. He would go out to the woods to cut down trees to use in our wood burning furnace at home, and I would be left with my grandmother and the aunts and uncle who were still living at home. My grandmother had 13 kids, she had a lot of work to do, so there was no time to spend playing with a young child. I do remember watching as she pulled the wet clothes through the hand wringer on her old washing machine. I recall going out to the chicken coop to care for those feathery beasts. And I remember that she always had huge meals on the big kitchen table ready for the guys when they came in from working at noon. I never looked forward to those trips, my aunts tended to be mean as they liked to lock me out of the house a lot, and I was a very shy child who wasn't comfortable around a lot of people. The other day I was driving home from work along a stretch of two lane country road and I realized one of the reasons I love our new house so much. It is because every day when I come home, I am reminded of the drive I used to take with my dad out to the farm as a child. Turns out, what I so greatly disliked has returned to bring me joy both in my remembrance of the past and in my present.