Houses

We are getting our house ready to sell right now. As I was rolling on yet more paint this evening, I started thinking about houses and how each one I have lived in has had a different personality and a different function in my life. Sure houses are only brick and mortar, walls, ceilings and floors. That's true, but we live our lives in them, grow up in them, raise our babies in them and laugh and cry in them. They aren't always just houses. Sometimes they're homes. And homes, even though we know they are temporary, are important.

I lived in several houses growing up. The first one I remember was in Nebraska. Some of the memories I have are sparked more by pictures I've seen. Without the pictures, I don't know if I would remember the porch or sidewalk or tree stump, but I do remember a feeling. I remember missing it. We moved kind of suddenly when I was four, and I just know I missed it.

Our house in Oklahoma was small and plain. I heard my first ghost story in that house and had many a sleep over with my best friend, Dana. I remember getting into some trouble for playing in a huge mud puddle at the end of the driveway. I don't think I formed an attachment to that house. It never seemed like home. I tried to run away while living there at least twice (I was between the ages of four and six, so I didn't get far). There was some turmoil in our family during that time, so maybe I attached some of those feelings to the house. I didn't miss it. I missed my friend when we moved, but not the house.

When we moved to Kansas, we lived in a rent house, then we moved to another one after the first 6 months or so. A lot happened in that second house. Quite a few things happened that I didn't find out about until later. I know I'm being vague. Maybe I'll share them in another post some day, but the things that happened aren't the point. The house became some place we seemed to need to be away from. It was small and had some problems, but life wasn't all bad there. I had birthday parties and played with friends there.

My craziest memory of that house was an early baking experiment. For some reason my mom wasn't home and I decided to make cupcakes. I couldn't find cupcake liners, but I knew they were made from paper with a wax coating on them - just like those paper cups with the wax lining, right? Wrong. I had a friend over, and we were both a little surprised when the inside of the oven burst into flames. We ran to the neighbors house. I can't remember if she called the fire department or not, but the cups must have burned themselves out in the oven without spreading to anything else because nothing else caught on fire. I still avoid making cupcakes.

I had one advantage at that house that I never had anywhere else we lived. I have to start by saying that I always had trouble going to sleep as a child. My mom used to say I didn't want to miss anything. She was probably right. Anyway, my bedroom was closest to the living room, and the way the hallway was positioned, I could sneak out of bed and sit in the hallway to watch TV without my parents seeing me. I don't remember if they ever caught me, but I stopped after I accidentally saw part of the movie Sybil one night.

When I found out we were moving to a new place, I was not sad I was leaving the house. It meant a change in schools and neighborhood friends, but it was time to leave, time for a change. I am somewhat indifferent about that house.

My favorite house was the one we moved into next. It had been built in the 1920's and had antique velvet wallpaper, beautiful wood floors, transoms over the bedroom doors and water radiators, which it still used for heat. It even had a back staircase from the kitchen that lead to the second floor. At the top of this staircase was a little maid's room.

It was cold in the winter and hot in the summer, but I loved it. It was warm, and friendly. Even the front of the house looked a little like a face. Life was not always rosy there. I turned into a teenager there. My parents' marriage took a big turn for the worse there. I cried over friendships and boys and all kinds of things while I lived there. The house still holds a special place in my heart, though. Maybe because it was older and had been well lived in or maybe it just suited my personal taste, but for some reason it seemed stable and sound and...well, just right. We lived there for about four and a half years, the longest I had lived in a house. I missed that house when we moved. When I visit Lawrence, I have to drive by it - even though it doesn't look the same and is smaller than I remember. I smile when I see it. It seems to smile back.

When we moved to Arkansas, we didn't have much. My parents were divorcing and my mom didn't have a job at first, so we lived in the duplex that my grandparents owned. My mom, brother and I shared a large bedroom. My mom put up a divider so my brother could have some privacy. There was no shower, only a tub, which made washing my hair really hard to do, so I rebelled and didn't wash it for a week one time. I guess I had to rebel against something. While we lived there, my parents divorce became final, my Aunt Judy died, and my grandfather died, all within a 6 month time period. I can't think of that little duplex without a twinge of leftover mourning and a sense of loss I can never quite put my finger on. It was not a good place for us to live, and we were excited to find a house to buy.

After my mom had found a stable job, we started looking for houses. I don't remember any of the other houses we looked at. The one we ended up buying was love at first sight. It was an older house, turquoise with white scallop trim. It had two bedrooms on the main floor plus an attic bedroom. What sold us, though, was the backyard. It must have been spring time. All I remember was walking to the back and seeing color everywhere. There were flowers and flowering bushes from one fence to the other. My mom took out a mortgage and we moved in.

While we were there, we started our lives over in a way. We started new routines. It stopped being quite so strange to set three places at the table instead of four. We even got used to the sound of the trains that rumbled past us a couple of blocks away. I miss that little house. It wasn't perfect, but it was ours, and it was where we started building our new definition of family.

I want to fast forward after we left that house. My mom remarried and we moved into his house, which was never really our house. After I graduated from high school I lived in a series of apartments and such. None of them were really home to me. I even told my mom once that I didn't really have a home, just places I lived. Then I married Trey.

After about three years of apartments, we decided to buy our first house. We fell in love with a little house in a neighborhood that was developed in the 1940's. It had some issues, and we had to do a lot of work to it, but it was cozy and we made it a home. We brought our first child, Jessica, home to that house, and she learned to walk there. We made the difficult decision that I should stay home with her in that house. We learned how to be a family there. We never intended to stay there forever, and we outgrew it pretty fast after Jessica arrived, but it was our first real home. I feel warm when I think of it.

We moved to our current house next, when Jessica was almost one. We have been here over eleven years now. We brought our second child, Mason home here, so this is the only home he has ever known and the only one Jessica remembers. I have lived in this house six years longer than any other. We've had growth marks on the door frames and drawings on the walls. One of the bedrooms has been used as a nursery for both of my babies, and the carpet we just ripped out had sippy cup and potty training stains I'm sure. We've been through a pregnancy, surgeries and the death of a parent while living here. There have been times when I had it neat and decorated and ready for company and other times when I wondered if I would ever find the kitchen table again. We have had the normal ups and downs of a maturing marriage here and have grown emotionally and spiritually as well as physically here (the physical growth has been vertical for some and horizontal for others.)

I don't consider myself a material person. I know that the things of this earth will all pass away, but this little corner of the earth that we have carved out over the last eleven years has meaning to us. It represents where we've been and what we've achieved; what we've done and who we've become.

How can we not feel an emotional attachment to the space where so much has happened? How can I not care what color I paint the walls or what cabinets I pick out. Yes, they are for someone else, but this house still means something to us. I care what happens to it.

So, I can't help it if I want to make this a place someone will fall in love with. I want someone to come in and make it their own. I want them, not to just live here, but to love, cry and laugh here. This house, just like anything else on this earth, is not perfect, but it has been a blessing to us, even when there were things I wanted to change about it. It has been our home.