The House that Built Me

I know they say you can't go home again.
I just had to come back one last time.
Ma'am I know you don't know me from Adam.
But these hand prints on the front steps are mine.
And up those stairs, in that little back bedroom
is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar.
And I bet you didn't know under that live oak
my favorite dog is buried in the yard.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear I'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.

               -Miranda Lambert, The House that Built Me

Those who know me well know that I hate pickles and olives.  They know I love singers like Jewel and Savage Garden, that I hate scary movies, and that loud noises and chaos make me want to jump out of my skin.

Those who know me well also know that I'm a pretty sensitive person, and I get very emotionally attached to worldly things like cars, books, and homes.  This blog is dedicated to my childhood home, the home I've spent much of my life in, the home I spent my formative years in.  

Let me digress for a moment to say that this home has also been home to many other families and people before me.  I don't want to make it sound like I am the only one who ever lived there or made memories there.  I know I kind of came in last, and the home wasn't originally my home.  Two families were blended together, and I consider myself a lucky person to have so many people in my family.   What I'm going to write about tonight is my personal experience with the House that Built Me.  It did, after all.

My mom and step-dad are selling their home after many years - Darryl has lived there over 40 years and essentially raised two families, and my mom has lived there with him for 25.  Like any family life, not all of the years were good, but that is life.  And the years make up who we are.  

I moved into the house on Alaska in 1990 when I was seven years old.  I was terrified of it at first, because it was filled with people I didn't know, smells I was not familiar with, noises I couldn't identify, and - worst of all - upstairs bedrooms that separated me from my mother, who I had pretty much shared a room with for most of my life up until that point.  My poor mom - I slept on the floor in their bedroom for many, many, MANY nights because I was too afraid to sleep upstairs by myself. 

After a while I got more comfortable, and the room at the back of the house became mine.  The windows looked out into the backyard, where a great Walnut grew and I could see Bogus Basin from my bedroom window.  It's the best room in the house - the coolest in the summer, and the coziest in the winter (though there is a smell of creosote from the chimney that runs right through the room).  I loved that room.  I did try living in nearly all the four upstairs rooms at one point (except for my brother's room), but in the end, I always came back to my room at the back of the house.  Like I said, it's the best.

It was in that room that I grew up.  Where my decor changed from  pink paint and little girl accouterments to hundreds of pictures of puppies cut of of calendars that adorned my bedroom walls, to dark burgundy paint and pictures of hot guys cut out of teen magazines.

My brother and the puppies on the walls

I had a lot of sleepovers with friends in this room.  I also had a couple of special sleepovers with my brother on Christmas Eves, where he would sleep on the floor and I would sleep in my bed and we would laugh and laugh until late into the night.  I remember him calming my fears one night because I was afraid that our dog at the time, Bandit, would try to attack Santa Claus, and that Santa Claus would retaliate and injure or kill our dog out of self-defense. Luckily it never came to that, though Bandit didn't last long because of his determination to kill every cat in the neighborhood. 

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Christmases were the best.  We were not rich, but my mom always made our Christmases amazing.  My brother and I would sneak down the stairs early in the morning, rounding the corner to the landing to peek at what Santa had left behind.  I remember a couple of years in particular: the year I got a bike with a radio on it, and the year I got a karaoke machine (my poor family had to listen to me belt out Shania Twain and LeAnn Rhimes for way, way too long).  

Summers were also awesome at that house, especially once I had my dogs, Kiko and Lucky.  I loved to lay out in the front lawns, laying my head on lucky's side while he snoozed in the sun, Kiko keeping watch from a few feet away.  I'd usually have a book in hand and a content feeling inside.  Those puppies were the best.  Sadly they are not buried at the house under any trees, as the ground was frozen when they crossed that rainbow bridge, but their memory is forever with that house and in my heart.

My beloved grandpa took his last breaths in that house.  A death which I'm sure he never dreamed of and never wanted (he always wanted to go out bravely on a mountain top with his boots on in God's great outdoors fighting of a grizzly bear by hand, or something like that).  I will forever cherish the quiet last moments I got to spend with his body before he was carried down there stairs by two men who loved him greatly and looked up to him. I stood in that particular spot perhaps that longest today.

The house went through a lot of changes over the years, from a complete remodel shortly after we moved in, to the dirt driveway finally getting concrete; my own room changed colors countless times, and doors put on the old garage.   The front door also changed many times. 

The beginning...

My awesome cousin Greg in his cool shades in the kitchen before it was remodeled

My friend Kenna in the driveway when it was still dirt.

The one room that never changed was the family room at the back (or front?) of the house.  With it's orange dingy carpet, ugly brownish copperish wallpaper and freezing cold temperatures in the winter due to a lack of insulation, that room was forever a favorite for watching movies and hiding from whatever was going on in the rest of the house.  This was our official TV room, and we never had a TV in the main part of the house until after I grew up and moved out and my grandparents moved in.  The family room was too cold for them.  :)

There is a stair, second from the bottom, that squeeks in the most delightful way when stepped on, and I always teased my mom about farting when she would step there. 

This happened - homecoming day!

There is a tin box buried in the front yard that I will probably never find that served as a time capsule for my friends and I, buried sometime in the early nineties.  I don't remember it's contents.

The basement is unfinished and has a musty smell of dusty concrete and iron, and can feel a little damp and creepy if you spend too much time down there.

The fan in the "computer room" whirs annoyingly.

I descended the stairs many times to a handsome boy in a tux holding a corsage after patiently waiting for me to finish my make-up for homecoming and prom.

I played on many tire swings over the years, hung from the great trees that adorn the property and provide shade and shelter to the aging house.

In that house, many hugs were shared, laughter rang out, angry words occasionally exchanged, meals cooked, tears shed, games played, children raised, grandchildren learned to crawl and walk and play, and love was grown.

Today was my last time visiting the house that built me.  As my two older children played in the trees outside, the house was quiet and I found myself alone (well, with my baby boy) in the house.  I walked every room, taking pictures in my head and remembering different things that happened in each room. I ran my hands along the walls, wiped away some tears, and said goodbye.   Even Camden was quiet and melancholy as we strode through the house, sharing one last walk-through in a house that he will have no memory of. 

I feel as though as loved one has died - the memories are there in my heart always, but now it's just an empty shell where life was vibrant and has now gone quiet.  I keep reminding myself that my memories are not retained in that house, but in my heart.  Home is with us always, in our memories and hearts and not necessarily in the sheet rock and concrete walls of a house. 

I always dreamed of my children having that house to go to to visit Grandma, playing in the vast lawns and under the great shade trees.  Many adventures are yet to be had there - but those adventures will be had by someone else - another family, another child.  I hold the memories made in that house forever near and dear to my heart, but it's time for someone else to take over.

I happen to know that the family buying that house has young children, which I am grateful for.  They will make amazing discoveries and go on amazing adventures as they find all the nooks and crannies and secrets of the house.  There are so many places to hide and explore.  I hope they are able to hang tire swings, dig holes, build a new tree house, play hide-and-seek, and ride bikes and have sleep-overs with all the neighborhood kids.  

As hard as it is to say goodbye to my childhood home, it's simply time.  Time to let go, time to move on, time to discover new places.  I'm lucky - I spent most of my childhood in one home. I had roots, and I am grateful.  I had a warm bed and space to run and people who loved me.  What more could I ask for?  My goal in life is to provide the same for my children.

I hope in 20 years I can go back and knock on the door and ask to look around my old home.  I'd love to touch the walls and find my way back to my childhood, find those memories back in the house that built me.  

My kids on the front porch, the last day at Grandma's house on Alaska