Going back to your old neighborhood feels smaller every time. It didn’t shrink. You grew.

The street did not change size. Your sense of scale did, because the place was once measured against a smaller person with a shorter reach and less of the world to compare it to. Feeling that shrink is strange, and it is one of the few direct readings you ever get of your own growth.

Next time you are back, notice one specific thing that used to look enormous: a hill, a fence, a walk you were not allowed to do alone. Do not be sad about it. Take it as a measurement you cannot get any other way.