You watched me grow up. You have my unkempt pencil markings on your door frames of all the inches I grew throughout the years. You have my favorite colors splashed upon your walls. You have some of my fondest childhood memories. You have my safe haven of a bedroom, from when I came home from having a bad day. But most of all: you have my whole world as a little girl intertwined into your foundation. It’s difficult accepting the fact that there are strangers living their everyday lives in a place that is so sacred to me. They don’t know that the tree in that backyard was the place I received my very first cut, or that driveway was where I learned to ride a bike. They don’t see all the family dinners, the dance parties with friends in the living room, the movie nights, the first dates, the friendships made and lost, but I do. I see my neighbor, who soon became my closest friend, knocking on the front door to hang out. I see pictures being taken of my first high school dance and my last on that lawn. I see a scrapbook of years of my life sitting on an acre of property in the middle of a development I could tell you everything and anything about. I see home.
Everyone grows up in a house but nobody expects to leave it until they’re ready. Suddenly out of nowhere, calendar upon calendar goes past, life happens, and you find yourself throwing everything you own into suitcase after suitcase you didn't even know you had. You don’t know where the time went and you come to the conclusion that maybe you’ll never fully be ready leave that place in the midst of it all. You're not too positive as to how you got to be so old, but what you do know is that that empty structure you’re standing in the middle of for the last time, is the only thing that was ever consistently there for you at the end of the day growing up. It could vividly tell you the story of exactly how you got to be that age. Good and bad days, it was a shelter from the massive and unattainable place that was the outdoors.
As sad as Miranda Lambert’s line “You know they say you can’t go home again” is, it truly does come down to those exact words. You could walk through those familiar halls a thousand times, years after you moved if given the chance, but that isn’t your castle anymore. New memories reign. It's almost as if there just isn't room for you there anymore and that's perfectly okay. New markings, colors, pictures and well just about everything is on display of what was once your canvas to create. As resentful and upset you want to be over the situation, you ultimately realize what a blessing it is to grow up in a place you get to miss, and give that same experience to some new little girl. It’s time to grow and move on, but something you can always smile about when driving past is knowing that that was the house to build you and that factor alone is enough to keep you complacent; no matter the amount of years to go by.
