Thursday, June 29, 2006

Welcome to wonderland...

childhood home
I just returned to my mom's place after visiting the house I grew up in.
It is a place I think about often and it tends to be the backdrop of many of my dreams.

I meant to just swing by and snap a few photos of the outside but a sweet little girl was outside. She could not have been any older than I was when we first started to build the house so many years ago.
I didn't think I would see anyone outside seeing as it was well past 10PM when we went by there, but there she was, hanging out as if she was waiting for me. She came right over to me and started chatting like we were old pals. I told her that it was my house when I was her age and that my family actually built it from the ground up. She seemed to find this all very interesting. Eventually her older sister came out, we all chatted and they invited us in to take a look around.

There were some very noticeable changes. For instance my bedroom is no longer a bedroom. They knocked out the wall, lined it with wood and turned it into what looks like a bar/music/piano area. In some ways I am happy that it isn't a bedroom any longer. I am happy that someone is spending time where I went through all of my teen craziness playing music and drinking beer and chilling out. It seems appropriate.

There were other changes too. Walls had been painted different colors, the kitchen had been changed around a bit.

Some things were exactly the same, and when I focused on those things it was like I never left all those years ago.

The new owners said that they just bought it about a year before and now their family may be going through a divorce as well so they will probably sell it. It seems the house has been through a few families now. They said they can tell that someone used to really love it, but it has changed hands so many times now, everyone has left their mark. Now it seems a little like a puzzle with missing pieces.

When we were leaving, the little girl walked us out to the car and she even held my hand when we were saying goodbye. It was very sweet. I told her how when I was her age I had written all sorts of poetry all over the inside of the walls of the room that used to be my bedroom. I told her if they ever took down the wall they would find all of the secrets I stashed in there before the walls were built up around them. I even have a time capsule buried in the main wall of my old room. In the time capsule I wrote a letter to a "little girl in the future" thinking that it would be a hundred years from then when it was found and a kid like me would find it. She thought that was pretty cool.

3 comments:

phoebe marie said...

that sounds wonderful. i wish i had some sort of place in my past that i felt connected to in such a way, but i moved so many times that no one place holds any specific value to me, memory-wise. it's all sort of a jumble. maybe the closest thing i have is my grandparents' house, where i spent a lot of the first 15 years of my life. but nothing that i can say was really "mine".
and now here i am, moving again. another place to create memories that i will probably leave behind again someday soon. i'd like to hope not, though. i could see staying here with ryan for a long, long time. his house is beautiful and i have to hope that i can somehow make it feel like a home - something i'm not sure i have ever felt...

Mira Manga said...

Aww sweet story!

I miss you Michelle xx

Michelle Auer said...

I tend to envy people who have a house that get passed down from generation to generation. That is the sign of having roots. I don't really have roots, so this house tends to be the closest thing for me. It is the last thing my family did as a family before it all fell apart.

and Mira-
I miss you too! :-)

 

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