When I was younger, I didn’t have very many friends. My parents were also very busy people. We had a TV but I didn’t use it. I never really cared for watching TV. I still don’t. When I was five, my parents got my brother and I an xbox 360 for christmas. I also got an iPad. My brother, Thomas, was always on the xbox and would never let me play games with him. I never got a chance to use it. Instead of playing video games or watching TV, I went to the backyard and played with the dogs and a soccer ball. When we first moved to the Gulf Coast from Colorado in 2008, my mom built my brother and me a sandbox. If you were standing on the back porch looking at the yard, it was in the back right corner of the yard. Eventually my mom moved it to the back left corner of the yard as there was a giant oak tree in the neighbors yard that gave us a shaded area. She moved an entire pile of sand one wheelbarrow at a time. I remember watching her doing that while I was playing with the dogs. When the sandbox got moved, a hammock was put in going across the sand. I loved playing in the hammock and swinging back and forth in it. Whenever my mom got the chance, she’d bring me down the street to the park so I could play.
One of my favorite things to do, however, was look out the windows. We lived in a two story house and I’d always stand on the stairs in the middle and look out the window. I would stand there for hours watching the shadows of the leaves move and the birds building their nests. I’d watch as the squirrels searched for acorns and how bees would land on flowers. My favorite part about this was watching the shadows of the clouds on the ground slowly moving and how the shadows from the oak trees would slowly shift from one side to the other as the sun moved.
The stairwell window wasn’t the only one I looked out. I had two windows in my room that I loved to gaze out of. My bed was in front of one of them and I’d sit on my bed for hours staring out into the neighborhood. My dresser was in front of the other window and I’d climb on top of it to watch the cars drive by.
Another window I loved staring out of was the window in my bathroom. It overlooked the neighbors garden and pool. She had so many beautiful flowers blooming in the spring and summer. There were always bees buzzing around her backyard. I remember seeing the side of her house from that window. She had curtains on all of her windows that you couldn’t see through. The only thing you could see was a couch pressed against one window in the top right corner of her house. When it would rain I would look out at her garden and listen to the sound of the droplets pattering against the metal roof of her car port.
I loved looking out the windows so much because it was like time had stopped. Everything was peaceful and quiet. The only things you could hear were the birds singing and the occasional car driving by. To this day I still love looking out windows wherever I go. The only difference is nothing is ever as bright or as colorful as it was when I was younger.
I love looking out the window or door when it rains, especially when it’s a sunny rain and you can see the dew on the grass. And the final line of your blog is sad, but unfortunately true. Though, sometimes if you really embrace the atmosphere around you, it gets brighter.