This Used To Be My Playground

We sold our family home this week. Yes, it's a miracle. Yes, if you want a realtor who can work miracles, you should try ours. No, our house isn't on the listings. It sold before it was even listed. Just one of those wonderful, amazing strokes of luck.

This used to be my playground
This used to be my childhood dream

I'd post a picture of it, but I forgot to take one. it's a brick four bedroom suburban ranch house. I think you get the idea. About 1900 sq ft. A blazing garden of azaleas in the front, which lasts a whole 2 weeks in the springtime. Rest of the year, a bunch of shrubs. Okay, I did find a "prom photo" from 2006 when I made Roger take me to the prom because I had never attended one. He was coaching at a high school back in those days. I mean, nothing special, just a photograph of an arrangement of furniture that is now in the wind, taken by a lady who sits in a chair all day and has her diapers changed. A quick look back into a past that exists only in a picture.


This used to be the place I ran to
Whenever I was in need
Of a friend
Why did it have to end


Now I feel like an idiot for feeling anything but transcendent joy that this house, which needs massive renovations unless you really feel attached to 1980 decor and cost money to keep up, is gone.


Especially since I hated the place from the minute my eleven year old foot hit the floor in 1970, the year my parents bought it. And the last year has been filled with the joy of disposing of a cumulation of 150 years of STUFF. I wish I was talking about GOOD stuff, but I'm talking about broken ceiling fans, tires so old they aren't steel band radials, or whatever, I don't know anything about tires except that my dad had about a dozen stored in a rotting storage house. Oh! He also had a file cabinet made of wood that was so eaten up by termites that it crumbled when you touched it. Now that was wild!

But I see I'm skipping over an important topic: WHY did I hate that house? Well, it's like this. It was 1970 and Columbia was just a lil ol stop in the middle of nowhere. There were like, twelve houses for sale in my parents' price range in the entire town. (I'm making faces here like I'm being force fed brussel sprouts). The house was designed by a man, I'm sure.


Our old house, in Blacksburg, Virginia, had a kitchen and dining room window that overlooked the Appalachian mountains and there was a deck where you could sit and watch the mountains and think long thoughts. This house had a kitchen window that overlooked THE GARAGE and the dining room window overlooked the driveway. Since I often dried dishes, I had a lot of time to formulate vile thoughts about THAT HOUSE.

And why do they always say
Don't look back
Keep your head held high
Don't ask them why
Because life is short


And before you know
You're feeling old
And your heart is breaking

Don't hold on to the past
Well that's too much to ask

But no matter. I said goodbye to the corner of the room where I wrote in my diary the night before 7th grade started. The corner where I was studying the night I heard that John Lennon had died. The corner where I wrote all those gooney poems that all "sensitive" teenage writers-t0-be are required by law to crank out.


I said goodbye to the room where I faced my mother and aunt the night my father died. To the kitchen where my sister (8) and I (11) broke into a chorus of "Jeremiah was a bullfrog! He was a good friend of mine! He never understood a single word he said, but I helped him to drink his wine! And he always had some mighty fine wine!".....when we were asked to sing "Joy To The World" right before Christmas dinner.


I remember the bathroom where my boyfriend tried to sneak a cigarette. I never smoked a cigarette in the house. Okay, one of the owners is dead and the other wouldn't know if I lit a stick of dynamite in front of her and is stashed in a home 20 miles away (mom has Alzheimer's) but I...couldn't. I thought about smoking a cigarette just for the um..heck of it and I. Could. Not. Do. It.

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I remember the day I opened the letter about my college scholarship and Daddy jumping up and smothering me with kisses and the day I got the Phi Beta letter and I ran into the backyard where Mom was hanging clothes and the dog jumped on me in joy as I screamed and cried and I didn't care that I got my good work clothes dirty..

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I remember the wedding day and the babies playing on the floor and the millions of holiday dinners and the fights and the hilarious jokes and the laughter and corny corny corny corny corny....

Well the years they flew

And we never knew

But I wish that you

Were here with me

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Well then there's hope yet

I can see your face

In our secret place

You're not just a memory

Say goodbye to yesterday

Those are words I'll never say

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Wishing you were here with me, Mom and Dad