This is the house that a lived in for the first 17 years of my life. A few days ago I was in my old neighbourhood and decided to drive past my old home. I slowed down, took a look and kept on going. Then something told me to turn back and take a picture. I actually don't have any good pictures of that beautiful old house on Broadway. So I went back and pulled up to the front of it and snapped a few pics. I tried to suppress my feelings and memories of that old house. Too many. Some good and some bad. It was hard to be there, for some reason I really had a hard time being there. Then as an action of self preservation, I looked in my rear view mirror at my little Noah fast asleep and felt a feeling of calm as though I needn't worry about the past.
I didn't expect myself to have that kind of reaction but I did. Sometimes taking a walk down memory lane is hard.
Aw, feelings of home are so strange aren't they? The apartment we lived in when Thane was born brings back so many memories for me. I don't know what it will feel like to enter the home we just moved from (our friends bought it). There's so many memories attached to homes!
ReplyDeleteThere is isn't there? I'm going to bawl when we have to leave our home in Hamilton. That is where we brought Noah home to. I remember that apartment that you lived in.
ReplyDeleteOh I agree! Sometimes memory lane is not a good place to go. You have a lovely future with your husband and son, so just look forward.
ReplyDeleteWow, 17 years. I've actually never lived ANYWHERE for more than three years. However, I'm hoping that will change with our current home. This place is just perfect for us & I don't want to leave! At the moment we only rent, but could see eventually asking to buy it -- the woman who owns it raised her family here, but has no intentions of living here again. She's such a wonderful woman.
ReplyDeleteBut I digress.. :)
it's always such a surreal feeling passing by the house you grew up in. such a beautiful house though!
ReplyDeleteThis made me think about where I used to live. My childhood house was swept away in a horrible flood, just months after we moved out. All thats left standing is the deck that my dad built, and the birdhouse that we built together up on the tallest tree. Going back to that place would shatter my composure. When I dream at night, a lot of my dreams take place there.
ReplyDeleteThis post really struck a chord with me.
Johanna, I completely understand.
ReplyDeleteI think what is strange is to picture other people living in the house which seems to belong forever to you and your memories. I even feel this way about the small school I went to as a child, which I still dream about very often. It is hard for me to accept that time has kept going there, and hundreds of other children call it theirs. For me, in my heart, it belongs only to a certain time, and to me and my classmates.
This gave me something to think about....
xo
Oh friends, I KNEW you'd understand. I feel connected to each of you knowing that there is a childhood place that still lurks in your dreams and memories too.
ReplyDeletexox
Coming out of lurkdom :) I recently drove past a few of my old childhood houses...not like I live far, but the feelings those little drive by's bring on make me hypervenilate a little each time...there are some warm memories...but they are covered deep in not so warm memories..
ReplyDeleteI can;t help but cry when I drive past the one my dad built with his own two hands...and the same house he passed in...this last time I was a bit freaked out when a girl, who from afar resembled myself years ago opened the door to let out a shit-zu...the same kind of dog we had while I lived there, she probably wondered why this strange woman was sitting in her car sobbing and stalking her..then I pulled away really fast...
Oh Mary Beth, your story is so touching but sad at the same time. How hard and surreal it must have been to see the house that your father had built, lived in and passed be used by someone else. I can imagine it opened a floodgate of feelings and emotions for you.
ReplyDeletexox