I’m six years old, sitting on the front porch in my pajamas with my grandma. She’s got coffee and I’ve got cinnamon toast, and the hummingbirds that come around every few minutes have sugar water. The sun comes up slowly through the tree branches. The dogs are napping inside. I know the scene well. I’ve got a hundred versions of this morning filed away. Some in the spring, some in the fall. Some with cereal, some with coffee milk. Some with my mom in the kitchen, some with her kicking up dust as she drives away. Through all the subtle differences, the feeling stays the same. A wonder and a calmness fills me as I look out at the trees and the pond. It looks like a painting to me. My grandma talks about how happy this place makes her, how it’s otherworldly in its peacefulness. I agree. None of these memories are plagued with worries of the future. I assumed in my innocence that this place would remain unchanged even if I didn’t.

It’s early May, six months after my twelfth birthday. I’m sitting on the bed in the upstairs room, the same hummingbird feeder hanging from the portico roof just below me. It’s just a guest room now, not a bedroom, and it shows. Clothes spill out of my backpack onto the floor. I’ve been up here too much over the past week, looking at my phone. I feel bad about it, but I don’t know what else to do. I don't remember what I used to do outside. What I used to think about when left alone with my thoughts. The calmness from before doesn't come as easy now. I try not to dwell on its absence, but it’s hard. There’s a moment, though, standing in the backyard the next day, my head tilted back watching the branches sway in the breeze, where I can feel it again. It’s fleeting and slippery but it's there. Something in me floats up just a little bit and sits there. That’s enough, I decide, to know it’s still there. I go back inside.

I’m in the upstairs bedroom again, two more years of memories behind me. Breeze comes in softly from the open window and I can feel it again, stronger than before. But there’s something else now, too. Something sad and a bit heavy, a bit empty. It doesn't feel quite the way it used to, when I could be lifted easily off my feet because nothing weighed me down. All the colors and sounds and smells used to make me feel filled up and complete. Now it deepens the feeling that something’s missing. It fills me with an aching want for something I can’t even name. It drives me crazy not knowing. But still, the wonder of this place pokes through like the tips of the pines seem to poke through the clouds. It still fills me up, even if it reminds me that beauty hurts now. It soothes me, even though there’s a sharp edge to the mystical contentment that used to be all I needed. This could be enough, though, I can feel it. I just don’t know how to get there yet.

I’m uncomfortably sixteen. The not knowing still drives me crazy. The sway of the branches in the breeze still calms me. The beauty still hurts. The nostalgia hurts more. 

Nostalgia’s not supposed to hurt this much, is it? 

Maybe there’s something wrong with me.

It’s not all bad, though. I make it sound bleak and terrible, and I’m sorry. The hummingbirds still come. I can still find a simple, uncomplicated beauty in the birds that peck at the feeder, in the early morning light that paints the living room. I still feel the special kind of comfort that comes in sitting on the kitchen counter while my grandmother asks me about dinner. The dogs still love me and I love them, even though they’re not the same ones as before. I don’t think it’ll ever feel exactly the same as it did once, and that’s hard. But the branches and the breeze make it easier.