R.I.P. dear house

Today my parents sold our house and I feel like they have sold my childhood and all my beautiful family memories. I realize that this is a completely absurd way of looking at the situation, but there you have it. It feels like a family member has died and I cannot get beyond this irrational sense of… (dare I say it) betrayal.

We moved into the house on Raich Drive when I was about a year and a half old and I have no memories prior to the ones I have in that house. If you haven’t spent your entire life in one house, I guess you wouldn’t understand, but the prospect of never having another Christmas or another big family gathering at that house is almost too much to bear because I have spent every single Christmas in that house except one.

I buried my hamster underneath the redwood trees in the Japanese garden. There were sleep-overs in the playhouse that my dad designed and built for me, and I gave myself a black eye (and a scar) swimming in our pool one hot summer night. I pricked my fingers picking roses in our rose garden. My dad and I made applesauce in our kitchen with the apples that grew on the trees out back.

There are so many things that my parents will leave behind – things they build with their own two hands. My dad designed and built the gazebo and all the layered decks. He painted our house by hand. Together my parents built a garden that could easily be in a magazine – if you’ve ever been to my house, you know that it’s true. When I envisioned a room with spring green walls, my mom painted them. She put beautiful things everywhere and made everything warm and wonderful.

I tap danced and learned to sew in our garage. I learned my lines and practiced my Mock Trial speeches in the blue-bathroom shower. I used to think the guest bedroom was haunted. In the summer the attic fan outside my bedroom roared and lulled me to sleep. When I could not sleep my best friend Lauren and I would lay in my bed talking about silly and fantastic dreams. At one point, we tore out the carpeting in the family room, and my brother and I rollerbladed on the bare concrete. We played basketball in the driveway, although neither of us is any good at it. We slid down the stairs on the hardwood floors after Aurelio came to wax them. On Christmas mornings, Sean would climb in my bed and we would lie in bed guessing what presents were under the tree until the morning light turned wintery orange, and it was late enough to wake up my parents.

There has always been something about that house that nurtured my creativity – I have written more stories there than anywhere else, and even now find that I can think better there than any other place I’ve ever been, or ever will be. Today my parents sold our house. But they have not sold our house, they have sold our home and as a result I have no longer have a place to go home to. Instead I will go to my parents’ house… in Atlanta… a city I’ve never even been to.