The House That Built Me

I drive past the pond and up the hill and halt the car at the stop sign for a longer time than a usual stop sign. I looked at where I was and see the wide pasture with the beautiful sun beaming over the walls grass and trees. This was always my mother and I's favorite view. I take a right and continue down the road and think back to when I was a kid and I used to close my eyes when my parents would drive us home and being able to know exactly where we were based on the hills, turns and stop signs. It still feels familiar. I parked my car in the driveway and took a deep breath knowing I was going to face old and precious memories the second I looked up and saw my childhood home. The home my grandparents built, the home my mother was born in, the home my brothers and I were born and raised in. 

I exited the car and looked up at the burnt red bricks and misty blue paint and knew my soul was home again. I walked towards the old oak door and push my way in. Despite the missing rugs and furniture, it still looked like home. I could stand there and still see the dining table and red rug next to the fireplace as you walk into the house. I looked at the stairs leading to my brothers and I's room and could still see us sliding down the stairs in our sleeping bags and crashing into the wall. I walked over to the window near the stairs at the back of the dining room and remembered when we had a snowstorm and we slid down the hill on old yard sale signs and crashing into the snow in the backyard. 

I walk upstairs on to the walkway that hangs over the dining room. All three of our rooms lined up across the wall. I walk into my old room and see where I had a painting of a giant tree with Winnie the Pooh and his friends plastered on the wall. On the other end of the room mom and strung white Christmas lights on the ceiling and put a sheen white fabric to cover it up and had it pinned in different places to make it look like puffy and bright clouds. I still remember the feeling of laying on the top bunk bed and imagining I was floating around in the sky with the treetops and clouds around me. I come back down the stairs into the dining room and look to my right and saw the hallway leading to the living room and mother's room. 

I walk up to the glass windowed door to her room and opened it wide meeting my favorite wall my mother had added in that was painted a dark red and square holes scattered across the wall to hold pieces of art. I walk farther into the room and see her closet. I see the shoe shelves and the hidden room behind the shoes taking me back to being a kid and climbing under the shelves to play in the tiny room. It was my favorite place to hide during Hide and Seek. I giggle thinking about how I thought no one would find me in there even though my friends and brothers knew where I was because, it was my designated hiding spot. I walk into the bedroom area and see where mom had her TV and rocking chair. That white rocking chair had sat in the same spot for 13 years. Mom rocked all three of us kids to sleep in that chair and sang us lullabies. I looked over to the shelves installed on the wall where the TV used to sit and remember when I was home from school because, I was sick and laying at the end of my mom's bed to see the TV and drinking my yellow Gatorade. I never knew why but, it was always yellow Gatorade. I still get that flavor whenever I'm sick. I walk out of my mother's room and take a left into the living room. 

I walk to the doors on the left side of the room that leads to the deck looking over the backyard and patio my parents had installed to have grill outs. We only used it a handful of times. I look around the deck and think about how my brother and I used to sit on the bench and shoot cans off of the trees with our BB guns we had gotten for Christmas. I see the square ring on the wood floors from where we had a hot tub installed. 

I walk back inside and look around the living room and remember exactly where all the couches, coffee table, pictures and TV used to sit. I even remember where the baby rocking bed used to sit. I giggle remembering when my first little brother was in the bed crying and I had walked over to the bed and clicked the high speed button and watched him sling back and forth thinking I was helping but, honestly I think I almost gave him motion sickness. I think about how my mom, myself and my two brothers all took our first steps in this house. 

I walk out of the living room and into the foyer on the right that leads to the garage on the left, the basement stairs in front and, the kitchen on the right. I look at the garage door and remember when I would come home from preschool and my white lab puppy would knock me over because, he was so happy to see me. 

I walk downstairs to the basement and laugh when I think about when I had gotten so excited about something that had happened at school and running downstairs to tell mom while she was working and tripped and tumbled down the stairs and smacking the hard ground. From that day on I was walked down the stairs slowly. I make it down the stairs and see the laundry room on my right and walk farther into the room and see where my parents had their desks set up for work. I look over to the opposite wall and can imagine where I used to have my Fisher Price Art Master Desk. I used to sit there and write scribbles and draw on old check books my mom had to pretend I was working like mom. Behind my desk is where the old TV used to sit that we had our game systems connected to. My stepdad and I used to battle each other for hours on Guitar Hero on that TV. 

I go over to the end of the room that leads down to the in-law suite where my grandma used to live. Her room was designed just like my mother's room but had extra paintings of a vine with flowers instead of accent walls. I look over to where her closet was and remember trying on clothes and having a fashion show for her. 

I walk back through the basement and back up the stairs into the foyer and walk into the kitchen. It still had the blue and orange tile backsplash on the wall where the sink and stove are. When I looked over to the sink, I remember the pictures my grandma took of me when I was a year old and mom had sat me in the deep sink to give me a bath because, I had gotten spaghetti all over myself. I walk around the kitchen and walk over the window that faces the front yard and think about the royal blue stained glass with the sun in the middle that my mom had hung up on the window and how the colors would reflect onto the floor from the sun. It was always so beautiful. 

I walk out of the kitchen and reach for the front door feeling sad because, I miss being a kid and growing up in this house with my family, but I feel happy at the same time knowing I was finally getting this house back. Mom had sold it when I was in middle school because, of the economy crash and I promised myself I would get this house back one day. This house is home. It will and always had been my home. I look around one last time and think to myself "I'm home."