Memory Lane

there’s one more story i want to tell about my trip to michigan.  while i was there i had an opportunity to visit my old neighborhood – you know, the one that i grew up in.  where i knew every house and who lived in it and at least the surface story of their lives, where i played mother may i and seven steps around the house and red rover outside at friends’ houses until after dark and no one worried, where we trick-or-treated for hours on halloween with no chaperones.   definitely the good old days!

 i walked up and down the streets noticing how huge the trees have become and then i did something i’ve been dreaming of doing for a long time.  there were cars in the driveway…. so i rang the doorbell of my old house.  a women somewhat younger than me opened the door.  i explained that my parents had built the house and that i lived there from age 3 till i went away to collage…. and she let me in!!  turns out she was just visiting.  her parents bought the house from my parents and her dad still lived there but wasn’t home.  she grew up in the house just like me!

there have been many times (likely during my insomniac episodes) that i have mentally walked through every room in that house and tried to remember all the details…. the furniture, what was in each cupboard and closet, what was hanging on the walls, the big basement.  and now, here i was standing in it!  it was a little surreal.  my brain was trying to negotiate 2 different time zones.  i mean, i had to carry on a conversation about the house now, what was different and what was the same (like the pink tile and green fixtures in the bathroom!), but part of me was in a completely different world.  the world of my childhood.  i would have liked so much more time.  time to just be there and soak it all in.  so many of my life’s moments, good and bad, happy and sad, from childhood birthday parties to adolescent door-slamming rages were spent in this place.  i had a strong urge to open up the cupboards and start looking at my stuff.  i know, irrational.

it was all over so quickly and i was so grateful to her for letting me in that i didn't think it would be polite to linger.   a couple of times she said that it was really a well-built and sturdy house.  my dad would have been very pleased to hear that.  i’m so glad i jumped on this opportunity to take a trip down memory lane!