Another friend of a friend came through my mom's house today. It's one of the neighbor's besties, and we were hopeful for a match, but I don't think it's meant to be. It's a unique house, a large victorian colonial with a ton of charm, history, and character, but not the cutting edge modern updates some people are looking for. Also, with three teens, the master bedroom on its own level is amazing, but the three bedrooms upstairs work for only two of them (the third is tiny), and the fourth large bedroom is ground level- with its own entrance- which may be a teen's dream, but probably not so much for a parent.
As I said to my mother, "Can you imagine if Nicole had been living in that room when she was 16? She would have been sneaking out nightly."
To be fair, her response was to quip "She just climbed out the window." E. overheard and I had to pretend we were joking- which we (sort of) were.
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| The porch where I spent a lot of humid summer nights hanging out with friends. |
It's been tough coming to grips with selling this house. Teenage antics aside, there were also a ton of additional memories in that house, the floodgates for which I'm not quite ready to open just yet. There's history in a home that's been in your family for 35 years. I grew up there, I learned to love there, I cried, said good-bye, said hello- all at that house. As I said to my husband today, "there's not a place I can look on this property that I don't have a memory." To demonstrated, I pointed to the giant rocks, which were pulled up and moved when they demoed an old barn by the side woods.
"See those boulders? That's where Nicole and I used to draw with watercolors- and jump off of when we were feeling ambitious." I turned towards the woods near the back. "That big oak? There was a vine that hung from it that I used to swing on, until it fell. Then, we had a tire swing hung from a big branch, and I used to sail out over the blackberry bushes."
I kept pointing. "And that tree at the start of the path in the woods? Ali and I transplanted it when it was a sapling. And the path to her old house- remember when we lit it up with Christmas lights and had that epic Memorial Day party in our yard and Ali's, with all those people from college and our home friends because we ran into high school buddies at The Office and invited them- and they all showed up, with more friends?! There must have been 200 people here!"
Now I was looking closer, checking things off in my head, thinking of the inside of the house as well as the yard.
That's where we first saw my puppy, Greta, when I was in third grade.
That's where I used to swing and sing along with Billy Joel's Greatest Hits while my dad built the three-season porch.
That's the window my crush broke in 6th grade by tapping it with a flashlight as he and a bunch of the boys from my elementary school crashed my birthday party.
That's the dirt path Greta created by running around the pool area, trying to "herd" us.
That's the hallway where my sister and I played epic battles of indoor soccer.
That's where we had soccer practice for my rec team in the backyard.
That's the spot where my mom stood cradling Allison the puppy in her arms on Christmas morning, with Greta bounding around her feet.
That's the deck where I ran around with my friends, swinging bells and blowing into noisemakers, shouting "Happy New Year!" and freezing in our nicest outfits.
That's where we put a canoe in the pool when we had our final soccer party in 8th grade, because our coach had to stop coaching us since she worked at our high school (the canoe was for her).
That's where I walked into the only surprise birthday party I've ever had, singing "Au Bal Masque" with Ali and Heather at loud decibels.
That's where my treehouse was, where I had my first real kiss (my parents may have been smart to take that thing down)
That's the spot where I had my first kiss with my husband- when we were 15- right before his mom pulled into the driveway to pick him up.
That's the garage where I had my sweet sixteen party.
That's the basement where we filmed a French video about zombies.
That's the porch where I my friends and I hung out during hot summer rainstorms in our late teens.
Those are the steps I stood on while hugging my granny after my dad, her youngest son, died.
That's where my sister and I hung up tarps so we could continue to have bands playing in the rain for a party.
That's where my mom and stepdad threatened to call the police because there were still late party guests in the pool at 4AM.
That's the kitchen where my husband asked my mom for her blessing before picking out my engagement ring.
That's the spot where we told my mom she was going to have another grandchild, and she said "How did this happen?!" (we had a nine-month old at the time) and my husband responded "Well Laura, when a man and woman really love each other..." before I smacked him on the arm.
That's where my daughters met their cousins for the first time.
That's where we took photos for my mom's wedding to my stepdad.
That's where the girls learned to swim.
That's where we had a mini-reunion of my best friends (and their children) before our 20th high school reunion.
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| PART of the backyard (there's a whole soccer field on the other side of the pool) |
When I was writing my thesis, I wrote about a theory on time that exists- one that says that at any moment, in any place, that everything that has ever happened, and will ever happen, are all going on simultaneously. If you could just peek through the fabric of time, you could glimpse those moments. At my mom's house, I always have that feeling, and I think that's what I'm going to miss the most. With access to that place, it feels like those memories are alive, that as long as I'm there to see them in my mind's eye, they are still occurring, somewhere in the ether.
And I have to remind myself, it's a place. It's just a place, and the memories - those are going to be with me, long after my mom moves. They are a (rather large) part of who I am, who I am becoming, and who I'm going to be. And that's always going to be true.
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