Solastalgia

For most people in the world there is one place where they can always count on going within their minds eye to escape the woes of the world. Some call it their happy place. Others simply just call it home. For me this happy place is a simple place called "pennies pond." Pennies pond is a place in the hills of Panguitch, Utah where the river meets a dam and forms a small swimming area where local youth can go to enjoy their days. For me as a young man this was where I would go to relieve stress and get away from the stresses of a maturing adolescent. However, as I grew and developed, so did the area of Pennies Pond. 
After recently returning to my happy place of my youth I found that the area was completely changed from what I remembered it to be. Weather had played a factor and blew trees down, the city had come and made changes to he river and the dam so it was less of a pond and the fire area which we had made so many memories at was covered up and no longer accessible. This caused some great pain and resentment within my heart that one might call Solastalgia. According to a philosopher named Glenn Albrecht at the University of Newcastle in Australia, "[Solastalgia] is the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault. It is manifest in an attack on one’s sense of place, in the erosion of the sense of belonging (identity) to a particular place and a feeling of distress (psychological desolation) about its transformation." (https://qz.com/1423202/a-philosopher-invented-a-word-for-the-psychic-pain-of-climate-change/) 
This sense for longing to be in the past and wanting what you once had is one of the hardest parts of going back "home." Once I returned once and saw the changes that took place and how different my happy place had become I no longer longed to go back to the physical place but rather I now longed to return to a state. A feeling of belonging and love and peace and happiness. Yet it was now gone and I now avoided returning at all costs. Zadie Smith stated in her poem, "Elegy for a Country's Seasons," "What 'used to be' is painful to remember..." "...It’s amazing the side roads you can will yourself down to avoid the four-lane motorway ahead." (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tTkKEkkZmTSBohPnunvmNajCFeh2qP6s/view). 
This longing to avoid the past and the feelings of what used to be is now how I feel about my childhood happy place. Pennies pond is no longer a physical place that brings me joy and happiness but rather an idea of growth and development. An idea of moving on and becoming much more than just a damned river, but rather, an ocean of greatness and accomplishment. I no longer have to be stuck in the pains of the past but can move forward to find the joy in the journey as I jump from one pond of life to another.