Growing Up in the Neighborhood

I don’t have a very big family. I only have one brother, and a few cousins, who I’m not very close to. Growing up, the other kids in my neighborhood were my family. We did everything together. We went to each other’s houses before and after school, depending on whose parents would be home. We played together at recess. We went to the park and played in the farm fields together. We played on the same sports teams and did our homework together. We had neighborhood parties in the summer. Our families got together to watch football games. We all would go to baseball games together. We were all the best of friends, and our parents were the best of friends. Through the years we became one big family.

Growing up, I took this ‘family’ for granted. I didn’t realize that not every neighborhood was like this. As I grew up and made new friends, I was shocked to learn that some people didn’t even know their neighbor’s names! I didn’t appreciate what I had growing up, and now I regret it. Things in the neighborhood have changed now. We aren’t as close as we used to be. Half of us are at college. The farm fields have been replaced with new houses and we definitely don’t get to play together at recess anymore. Now, I cherish every backyard barbeque and every Packers game we get to spend together. I would not be the same person that I am today without living in my neighborhood. It gave me a sense of community and an instant set of friends growing up. We learned from each other and to this day we will always have each other’s backs. We drifted into our own separate groups of friends as we grew up, but we will always have a bond that will never go away. In high school, people didn’t understand why we all were so close, and I really don’t think anyone ever will. As I grow up and start a family some day, I hope that I can live in a neighborhood like the one I grew up in, so they can be just as fortunate as I was. I just hope that they realize it before I did.

(The picture is of some of the kids from the neighborhood, waiting for the bus, about 8 or 9 years ago. From the left: Dominic, Michael, Zach, Nicole, Me, Jen, Leanne, Deanna, Laura, and Kate)