Growing up you don't really realize how fortunate you are to live in a beautiful house. You don't think twice about going home everyday and opening the front door to a house full of memories. Since the day my parents bought the house, I can vividly remember my five-year-old legs climbing up what seemed to be a mountain of stairs to my new bedroom. And now, almost 15 years later I look around, seeing and feeling so many memories.
When I look at my mud-room, I see my moms failed office. I see the snow-pants and winter gear drying from a long day of shoveling outside.
When I look at my kitchen, I see the pre-home improvements. I see the cracked white tiles and the gray plastic counter tops. I see the counter tops where I spent endless hours doing homework and fighting about grades.
When I look at my kitchen table I see countless family discussions ranging from serious talks to conversations that end with someone choking on their food from laughing so hard.
When I look at my family room, that's exactly what I see. The room in which my family spent most of the time. I see the fourteen different Christmas trees that we've managed to squeeze through the back slider. I see Sunday night football with pigs in a blanket served on the coffee table.
In the dining room, I see every single Thanksgiving dinner held. I vividly see a packed room filled with a hungry Italian family.
In my bedroom, I see my childhood. I see the collar of our first dog. I see the countless nights of tossing and turning in bed. I see the hole in the wall from when my brother had his "angry days." I see mascara marks on my pillow from my bad days. I feel the memory of opening my first college acceptance letter.
In my parent's bedroom, I see the nights where I would crawl into bed with my parents because of a nightmare. I see the time my whole family cried about losing our dog. I see the times where I was young enough to still cuddle. I see the Christmas mornings where two eager children woke up their very dormant parents.
To have to look at this house and give up all these memories will be one of the hardest things to do, but I will be giving this house to a new family to make two decades worth of memories. This is a bittersweet part of life.
