My parents are selling their house, well, my childhood home, to be more specific. A house isn’t just a place for your stuff, it’s a place for memories.
On our first Easter there were red tulips, yellow daffodils, and purple irises in the front yard. We had a rock box in the back yard because my dad is a neat freak and didn’t want us tracking in sand. I had pool parties every year for my birthday. I can’t imagine how many hot dogs and hamburgers have been consumed on that patio.
In junior high I made an ideal babysitter because I was centrally located in the neighborhood. I could walk myself to and from my jobs. My dad would deliver me a meal on wheels. I never really liked SpaghettiO’s and my mother always insisted that I eat salad with every dinner.
My high school girlfriends who lived across town benefitted from my knowledge of where all the boys in my neighborhood lived. (The cute ones and the not so cute ones.) My front drive way was the scene of a few awkward almost-sort-of-pseudo first dates.
There’s a piano in the living room that sits and mocks me because I haven’t mastered my chords. There’s a trace of the aqua paint in my bathroom that turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea. My boxes of diaries, postcards, newspaper clippings, old pointe shoes and tutus just won’t fit in at this new place. I’m convinced.
I’m afraid that there will be no trace of the family—of the girl that became Girl Friday—that loved that place for 21 years when we finally say good bye.
