The weekend has changed

I remember this place; it was a ravine behind my grandparent´s farm. My cousins and I went every weekend and we played there for hours. This ravine had a little river and it was full of trees and all kinds of plants and insects. My oldest cousin went to the top of a little hill were all the water of the rain was accumulated. He looked for a wooden board that holds the water in its place and he pulled it and my other cousins and I got all wet. Eventually we made a mud fight and then we threw rocks to the river.

The amount of water of the river was a lot; of course, I was 6 or 7 years old and for my size it might had been really deep.  Water and mud filled my shoes and my clothes, we needed to change but we were only kids having fun in a place we believed was ours.

Passing the river there were some orange trees. We sent their smell all over the place. I could feel a sweet and acid aroma that made my mouth watery. You know that kind of sensation a sour smell and that goes through your nose and reaches your mouth; you think you are eating the fruit.

I loved to collect all the oranges I could. Sometimes I got a large amount of oranges that no one would like eating them anymore.  My mom always liked to eat them with some salt and prepared them for all of us.

A funny fact about all these is that most of the people that know me think that I don’t like going into the woods and get all dirty, but that is the image I project. Maybe no one really knows me well enough to know little details about me.

Years have passed and my family has grown seens we all went to the ravine.  We all have grown older and we no longer like the things we used to like.

My cousin is now 25 years old and I'm sure he is no longer interested on going to have mud fights with me or my little sisters.  He is already graduated from university and I'm on my way to graduate from high school.

My grandfather died a long time ago and we stated going less and less to his farm. Even the cows that he owned were gone.  The place I remember is no longer the same.

A couple of years later I decided that I wanted to go there. I really missed that beautiful place where I almost grew up on.

To my surprise nothing was the same as I remembered. The river was no longer was a river, in fact, there was no longer water in it. There were some orange trees left but I couldn’t go through them because the track was impossible to cross. It was full of plants and full of “chichicaste”, which is a very itching plant. Also they were lots of spiders that had built their web all over the place.

It is sad to remember this beautiful place that is now extinct, but is sadder to know that maybe if we had continued to go, probably the ravine wouldn’t be covered by the vegetation.

What I´ve learned through all this is that things, people, and even places change. And we shouldn’t let go the things that in the past made us happy or joyful. At the end all we have done make us who we are.