When you're like 10-14 years old, you'd explore those kinds of places with your friends without a care in the world and have only a vague idea of possible dangers. You'd still have a good time though, and nobody would get hurt. My childhood best friend and I and his little sister would go around those kinds of places when we were all kids. As you get older, people will grow apart or have a falling out, or you'd split when you start to see the world one day while someone sees it another. Even if someone comes from a one parent home or a broken home, there is still that feeling of innocence and whimsy. Ten years later, there might be another group of kids exploring that clearing before the city builds a house over it.
Years later, as a jaded adult, you'll pass by these sorts of places and locales from your youth and have kind of a sad nostalgic feeling. All of those people have gone their separate ways, including you. You'll probably never see most of them ever again - people move out of state for school or work, or you'll just get a like on a Facebook post every now and then. But you can never go back to that time pre-"jaded adult" when it was just, as I described, the innocent whimsy of childhood. Makes me wish I had more friends growing up instead of just sitting in front of a screen most of my youth, but I can't go back. Those days are over. I feel nostalgia and sad at the same time, considering what happened to some people I knew a lifetime ago now.
