Saying Goodbye To The Places You Once Called Home

Ive only ever lived in two houses my entire life, my parents’ first house which I was born in and live to about age six and the current house I am in now for all the time after that. Having just graduated college and two of my other siblings moving out to find their own place in the world, my mother and I are left in a house too big for the both of us. It went up on the market a few months ago and today we finally receive an offer and it is going to be sold. This will be the last Christmas and New Years in my childhood home, which after we will move out and most likely find a small apartment somewhere until I move out myself.

                           (not my actual house for those wondering)

Its weird to be so attached to an object like a house, but as far as I can remember back, everything that has happened to me was in that childhood house. Good or bad, I still have memories that I want to remember. I am an adult now, but part of me always wanted to be able to keep that little piece of childhood I could visit if I ever needed to. Unfortunately I am now left feeling like everything I experienced there is slipping through my fingers. The realization that the place I called home for nearly 18 years of my life, will cease to be mine, is slowly hitting me. Someone else will call my childhood room home while I am forced to move forward.

All of my best friends growing up lived within a two block radius of my house. I remember the summer bike rides and walks down to the basketball courts and local convenient stores, just talking about life. My one friend moved to another state and my other two I have really just fallen out with over the years. Part of me more than anything wishes I could go back to those days, a much simpler time for me and my family. No worries other than just showing up to school and not having to think about the future. I lived in the moment , something I miss being able to do.

In many ways im still the same person I was back then, but now I am forced into a life that I know not the future. I will be looking for a job in a field I know only a little about and will be required to work long hours, only to return back to a two bedroom apartment that I don’t want to and can’t find myself calling home. Home may only be where you are living, but to me I was much more attached to my family home than I care to admit. Much of my days were spent in my basement with friends, watching movies and playing games like World Of Warcraft. My biggest fear is that without the room to remind me, all those memories will fade in time.

I know this is just part of growing up and a big part of moving on into your own life, but when your future seems grim, it’s a hard pill to swallow. I know that someday I will find a home and raise my children there, making new memories while doing so, but it seems so far away. I feel as if im in a transitory stage that no one enjoys, but acts as a right of passage onto a better life. Everyone I talk to that lives on their own now and is paying their own bills, is stressed all the time. All I can do now is just hope I don’t end up like one of them.

So as I myself am moving on in my life and looking at many changes happening in the next few months, I hope I can find something of stability in other parts of my life. Its not the end of the world, but I will truly miss the time spent in my childhood home and all the memories I spent there. It saw the life and death of two of my dogs, the raising of four of us from children into adults and hosted countless other memories I will never forget. There will always be a place in my heart for my house and the hometown I was raised in, even with all the flaws they had. I raise a glass to my house, the old memories that occurred there and can only hope that the new owner may feel the same way about this pile of bricks as I do.

• Calaber24p