Impermanence

I had the opportunity this past week to visit my old stomping grounds.  Just a couple of hours to drive around my childhood neighbourhoods where I spent a great deal of my "formidable" years.  This area isn't far away, but I haven't really had the opportunity to go back and visit and reminisce for quite a few years. 
My earliest memories, vague as they are, were from when I was about 3 or 4 and my family moved to Edmonton.  We were one of the first families to move into a mobile home park on the south side.  I remember stacking my toys up against the back fence so I could peer over and watch the tractors directly behind our yard working the farm land, which incidentally is all you could see. One day, I heard the tractors working, so I set to building my perch so I could watch again.  I recall being surprised as this time the tractors were very different from what I had expected. The farm machinery this day were replaced by heavy road construction machines.  The road they were building?  34th Avenue.
I have fond memories of this and many other places in the neighbourhood, but as I toured around being somewhat nostalgic, things were not how I left them. It's funny how a certain part of your brain, thinks things should be EXACTLY the same some 20, 30, or 40 years later.  As I saw many pivotal personal landmarks gone or in major disrepair, I was surprised how much it affected me.
Probably not a good week for this sense of impermanence to be re-enforced given everything else that is going on, but what this did do was serve as a strong reminder that life is short and that we need to live in the moment and (not to sound too cliché) seize the day.
It is important to remember the past (good and bad) but not live in it.  It is important to live in the present while building memories and preparing for the future.

Thanks for reading.

Mike