I wrote this several years ago when I was having a hard time with moving out of my old house and I found it today while going through an old blog and felt like reading it. it’s long so feel free to skip it. I just wrote it well and needed to see it again.
Before I went off to college when I was 17, I had never moved. I had always lived in Kalamazoo. My parents divorced when I was young, but I lived at home with my dad and my mom got an apartment nearby. I stayed with my mom sometimes, but only for a few days at most, and I never considered her apartment to be my home. Going to college was a drastic change for me; I was so used to the quiet routine I had made for myself. I hated the moving process and I hated the idea of being on my own with no one I knew nearby.
As reluctant as I was, my freshman year of college began, and as it progressed I slowly realized that I loved my university. I made good friends, took challenging classes, went to my first Big 10 football game, ate too much pizza in the cafeteria, laughed with my roommates until we cried, and spent all night in the library during finals week. I was still awkward and insecure, but sunlight found its way into my life nonetheless. I was happy, finally. Freshman year of college was also the year my dad got remarried and my stepmom accepted a new job in Ohio. My dad still held his job in Kalamazoo but it was decided that after a year or two, he would retire and move down to Ohio with my stepmom. They would buy a house and live their small town happily ever after. I felt fine about this decision because “one or two years later” seemed very, very far ahead in the future. The thing about time, though, is that it moves faster than you think, and even faster still when you ask it to slow down.
Sophomore year of college started, and in the blink of an eye it was mid-December, already time to go home for our winter break. My dad came to pick me up, I packed, and we started the drive home. On our way, I was told, completely out of the blue, that I couldn’t live at home anymore. It blindsided me, to say the least. To this day it is still the most shocked I have ever been. And my mom, with no warning at all, found she had to let me live with her from then on. She had expected me to go home with my dad, but instead I was dropped off on her doorstep, luggage in hand and an aching sadness spreading through my chest. But as always, time kept passing, my sophomore year ended, and I came back to my mom’s apartment in May. By then, all my things were there, I had filled out change of address forms, and received my updated drivers license. It was official: my mom’s apartment was my home. Or maybe I should say it is my home. I still live, eat, sleep, and laugh here. I want to say it is my home. The problem is that it doesn’t feel sincere. The building is nice and clean and safe and quiet, but it doesn't feel like home at all.
I haven’t lived at my dad’s house in almost a year now but it’s still hard on me. My dad and my stepmom have bought their new house in Ohio, my dad has moved all his things, and on the 1st of August, someone new will move into my old house to rent it from my dad. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know if it’s one person, or a group of college friends, or a family with children. All I know is that it isn't my house anymore and there's no going back from that. Renovations have been done, new paint has been added, and somebody is about to begin a new part of their life in that house.
As reluctant as I was, my freshman year of college began, and as it progressed I slowly realized that I loved my university. I made good friends, took challenging classes, went to my first Big 10 football game, ate too much pizza in the cafeteria, laughed with my roommates until we cried, and spent all night in the library during finals week. I was still awkward and insecure, but sunlight found its way into my life nonetheless. I was happy, finally. Freshman year of college was also the year my dad got remarried and my stepmom accepted a new job in Ohio. My dad still held his job in Kalamazoo but it was decided that after a year or two, he would retire and move down to Ohio with my stepmom. They would buy a house and live their small town happily ever after. I felt fine about this decision because “one or two years later” seemed very, very far ahead in the future. The thing about time, though, is that it moves faster than you think, and even faster still when you ask it to slow down.
Sophomore year of college started, and in the blink of an eye it was mid-December, already time to go home for our winter break. My dad came to pick me up, I packed, and we started the drive home. On our way, I was told, completely out of the blue, that I couldn’t live at home anymore. It blindsided me, to say the least. To this day it is still the most shocked I have ever been. And my mom, with no warning at all, found she had to let me live with her from then on. She had expected me to go home with my dad, but instead I was dropped off on her doorstep, luggage in hand and an aching sadness spreading through my chest. But as always, time kept passing, my sophomore year ended, and I came back to my mom’s apartment in May. By then, all my things were there, I had filled out change of address forms, and received my updated drivers license. It was official: my mom’s apartment was my home. Or maybe I should say it is my home. I still live, eat, sleep, and laugh here. I want to say it is my home. The problem is that it doesn’t feel sincere. The building is nice and clean and safe and quiet, but it doesn't feel like home at all.
I haven’t lived at my dad’s house in almost a year now but it’s still hard on me. My dad and my stepmom have bought their new house in Ohio, my dad has moved all his things, and on the 1st of August, someone new will move into my old house to rent it from my dad. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know if it’s one person, or a group of college friends, or a family with children. All I know is that it isn't my house anymore and there's no going back from that. Renovations have been done, new paint has been added, and somebody is about to begin a new part of their life in that house.
There is a short quote from one of my favorite TV shows, Friends, that I think of when I remember my old house. It goes, “If I had known the last time I saw you would be the last time, I would have stopped to memorize your face, the way you move, everything about you.” I wish I had stopped to memorize more of my life. I wish I had taken more pictures of all the rooms. I keep wishing for more pictures. I wish I had the foresight to cherish more moments. I wish I had known that I wouldn't always have the things I had back then, because I keep wanting to feel it all again. To touch and smell and see it all in real life instead of in my memory. I spent 18 years in that house.
When I was young I used to climb the apple tree in our backyard. The yard was quite large, with 3 huge trees and the smaller apple tree that was perfect for my height. It produced small, tart, green apples that only animals could stomach eating. When I was young my parents bought me a cute, pink playhouse that I loved to pretend to cook in. I outgrew it but we kept it into my teenage years. My friends and I would climb up onto its roof to sit and eat snacks. Later, my parents put up a swinging bench where I would read for hours. I brought pillows to the bench, stretched out, and felt the breeze on my face as I read. In the height of summer I would spread out a blanket on the sunniest part of the lawn and lay down, trying to get as tan as I could without getting sunburned or bitten by mosquitoes. I would fall asleep there, dozing in the warmth of July afternoons. I played fetch with our dog and rolled around in the grass with him. I took countless pictures for my photography projects in that backyard.
I hated the shade of blue the house was painted when I was a kid, but I couldn’t wait to come home to it after a long day of school and gymnastics practice. I remember when I was very little I would have to go with my parents on these exhausting trips to run errands that always took several hours, and when I got home, the first thing I would do after walking through the door was to lay down on the carpet and appreciate the comforting smell of our house. I would think how tired I was and how glad I was to be home. I roller skated up and down our tiled kitchen floor and pretended I was an Olympic figure skater. We had an early Macintosh computer in our basement that my friends and I played games on for hours. That was the only reason I went in the basement; I was always too scared to stay down there alone, and no matter how old I was, as soon as I turned off the lights I would run back upstairs as fast as I could.
In the winter my dad would make a fire in the fireplace and we would get this special kind of wood from the store that would make the flames turn different colors. We used to get real Christmas trees, decorate them together, and I’d watch happily as my pile of presents started to appear as Christmas Day neared. We put stockings on the mantle and hung lights up outside the house. I played in the snow on the front lawn and made snow angels. My friends and I had snowball fights and imagined palaces made of ice. At the beginning of spring, crocuses would appear, brilliant purple and yellow, and I would watch as they bloomed, only for a week or so, before they were gone again. Once the weather got warm, I would run around on the lawn, practice my gymnastics routines, play with my pet rabbits, and make chalk drawings all over the front porch, the driveway, and the sidewalk. I jumped in the big piles of leaves that accumulated in the early fall; the tree in front of our house was always the first in the neighborhood to shed its leaves.
I put pictures up all over my room. Until I was a teenager my room was covered in very dated floral wallpaper. Combined with my floral bedspread, it was like I lived in a garden. Finally when I was 14, we stripped the wallpaper, painted my walls white, and I covered as much as I could with all sorts of pictures, posters, and magazine clippings. I glued plastic stars on my ceiling that glowed in the dark when I turned my lights off. I got a bookcase that held over 100 books. My parents read to me every night before I went to sleep when I was very young. I read Harry Potter in my room and cried when it was over. I built forts with the blankets and pillows from my bed and slept in them for several nights in a row. I organized all my clothes and shoes and jewelry in ways I still use today. I got ready for my senior prom in my room, and a few weeks after that, I put on my graduation cap and gown in that room and prepared myself for my high school graduation.
I took my first steps, said my first words, had sleepovers, fell in love with my first boyfriend, lost my first tooth, learned to do laundry and to cook, had dance parties with my friends in that house. I got sick, I laughed, I cried, I argued, I apologized, I learned. I grew up in my home and now my time there is done. After I moved out my things I came back and sat on my bed for awhile and just thought about everything I experienced in that house. I lived, really lived there for 18 years. I walked through all its rooms and said goodbye to everything there. I locked it all away in boxes and set them as far as I could into the back of my mind.
I’m trying not to be sad because I know it’s pointless. I will never live there again and I know I should be excited to be starting this new chapter of my life, but sometimes I wish things were different. I wish I could take my children there 20 years from now and show them the room where their mother used to sleep. I wish I could grow up even more in that house.
When I think of all this, I can’t help but recall an old song by the band Semisonic, called Closing Time. There’s one lyric that stands out, and it goes “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” This is a huge ending for me, and I do feel sad about it. But there’s a new beginning to be had, and the only thing for me to do is to keep focusing on the good to come from that. I have absolutely no idea what it’s going to lead to, but someday I hope it can lead me back to a house like the one I grew up in. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end, so I suppose this is both. The end of one story and the beginning of another. I hope this new story feels like home.
I hated the shade of blue the house was painted when I was a kid, but I couldn’t wait to come home to it after a long day of school and gymnastics practice. I remember when I was very little I would have to go with my parents on these exhausting trips to run errands that always took several hours, and when I got home, the first thing I would do after walking through the door was to lay down on the carpet and appreciate the comforting smell of our house. I would think how tired I was and how glad I was to be home. I roller skated up and down our tiled kitchen floor and pretended I was an Olympic figure skater. We had an early Macintosh computer in our basement that my friends and I played games on for hours. That was the only reason I went in the basement; I was always too scared to stay down there alone, and no matter how old I was, as soon as I turned off the lights I would run back upstairs as fast as I could.
In the winter my dad would make a fire in the fireplace and we would get this special kind of wood from the store that would make the flames turn different colors. We used to get real Christmas trees, decorate them together, and I’d watch happily as my pile of presents started to appear as Christmas Day neared. We put stockings on the mantle and hung lights up outside the house. I played in the snow on the front lawn and made snow angels. My friends and I had snowball fights and imagined palaces made of ice. At the beginning of spring, crocuses would appear, brilliant purple and yellow, and I would watch as they bloomed, only for a week or so, before they were gone again. Once the weather got warm, I would run around on the lawn, practice my gymnastics routines, play with my pet rabbits, and make chalk drawings all over the front porch, the driveway, and the sidewalk. I jumped in the big piles of leaves that accumulated in the early fall; the tree in front of our house was always the first in the neighborhood to shed its leaves.
I put pictures up all over my room. Until I was a teenager my room was covered in very dated floral wallpaper. Combined with my floral bedspread, it was like I lived in a garden. Finally when I was 14, we stripped the wallpaper, painted my walls white, and I covered as much as I could with all sorts of pictures, posters, and magazine clippings. I glued plastic stars on my ceiling that glowed in the dark when I turned my lights off. I got a bookcase that held over 100 books. My parents read to me every night before I went to sleep when I was very young. I read Harry Potter in my room and cried when it was over. I built forts with the blankets and pillows from my bed and slept in them for several nights in a row. I organized all my clothes and shoes and jewelry in ways I still use today. I got ready for my senior prom in my room, and a few weeks after that, I put on my graduation cap and gown in that room and prepared myself for my high school graduation.
I took my first steps, said my first words, had sleepovers, fell in love with my first boyfriend, lost my first tooth, learned to do laundry and to cook, had dance parties with my friends in that house. I got sick, I laughed, I cried, I argued, I apologized, I learned. I grew up in my home and now my time there is done. After I moved out my things I came back and sat on my bed for awhile and just thought about everything I experienced in that house. I lived, really lived there for 18 years. I walked through all its rooms and said goodbye to everything there. I locked it all away in boxes and set them as far as I could into the back of my mind.
I’m trying not to be sad because I know it’s pointless. I will never live there again and I know I should be excited to be starting this new chapter of my life, but sometimes I wish things were different. I wish I could take my children there 20 years from now and show them the room where their mother used to sleep. I wish I could grow up even more in that house.
When I think of all this, I can’t help but recall an old song by the band Semisonic, called Closing Time. There’s one lyric that stands out, and it goes “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” This is a huge ending for me, and I do feel sad about it. But there’s a new beginning to be had, and the only thing for me to do is to keep focusing on the good to come from that. I have absolutely no idea what it’s going to lead to, but someday I hope it can lead me back to a house like the one I grew up in. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end, so I suppose this is both. The end of one story and the beginning of another. I hope this new story feels like home.
