Small Places

As the successful businesswoman she is now, she was traveling constantly. You know, meetings and the like. She had one rule: if the meeting location was within six-hours of drive, she would only drive. No planes or trains. She did this because that was the only way she could spend time on her own. She would just turn on the music and drive peacefully.

Today was a four-hour drive and via a route she had been to in long time. That was not the only thing. She would actually pass by the town she grew up in. After she left that town at the age of 15, she had been back at all. She was excited and curious to do that at least briefly now. How much had the town changed? She hoped not much so she could relive the good old days for a few hours.

She got into her car. This time, she felt something she had not felt in her car. She felt out of breath for a while. She took a forced breath and started the car. Once she got out of the town into the calmer areas, she started thinking about the fact that she felt out of breath most times she was in a small space. She had felt it the first ever time she got into her car but then she had got used to it. So today was weird. But other than that, she felt the same whenever she was in a small room or even a street that was smaller than usual.

She thought and made a list of all places she felt like that. She had not noticed how common that feeling was for her. Why was that?

As she came to the end of her list, she was already entering her childhood town. The first place she wanted to visit was the park she played at, so she drove there. The park was there but it looked different. There were more things for kids. In her time, it was close to empty. She walked in the park and cherished some memories.

Then she went to her school. Something told her to go to a hidden spot she hated. She did not know why she had started hating that spot but she listened to her instincts. The spot was there. She sat and thought of what had happened here. She vaguely remembered some of her classmates bullying her in the open garden. She did not remember what had gotten them angry on that day, but they were certainly not kind. They pushed her around, so she ran and hid here. But someone found her and told the bullies. They came. She remembered not being able to breathe as the bullies bullied her.

She noticed not being able to breathe now. She got out of the spot right away. She walked away. As she was walking, she tried to remember the details of the bullying incident. She could not remember much, so she left that thought. Instead, she was now thinking of how you cannot escape the effect of the little moments in your life, no matter how big you get.