Folk songs can sometimes be very apt, I think this captures pefectly the emotions that we experience when it dawns on us that some of the big experiences of our lives happened a long time ago:

Lonely, I wandered through scenes of my childhood
They bring back to memory the happy days of yore
Gone are the old folk, the house stands deserted
No light in the window, no welcome at the door

Here's where the children played games on the heather
Here's where they sailed their wee boats from the burn
Where are they now? Some are dead, some have wandered
No more to their home will the children return

Lonely, the house now, and lonely, the moorland
The children have scattered, the old folk are gone
Why stand I here, like a ghost or a shadow?
It's time I was movin', it's time I passed on

I woke up the other day and realised my dear father had been dead for 30 years, I had known my wife for twenty years and it was 10 years since I left England for Scotland. Scary stuff, each event seemed as fresh as yesterday.

Years ago I went to visit the Welsh mining village where I lived briefly as a child. The main street hadn't changed much but when I went to look for the place where we lived it had disappeared, I was lost in a place I once called home. Proof I think that time and tide respects no man. Its best to surf the wave looking forward to a positive future because the past is gone forever.