going home

Going home.

It used to mean my childhood house.

Visiting with my aunts and uncles and cousins and friends.

It meant

Jerry's ice cream.

Swimming at Delaware.

Golfing at Hickory Hills.  

But now, my days in my childhood home are numbered.

That is a WEIRD feeling.

Chris and I have been back a few times to clean out the house,

packing up the things we want,

and donating the things we don't.

It's sad.

To see it empty is much more difficult than I thought it would be.

We were there last weekend making progress on the clean out.

I was about to put my old ratty, falling apart CandyLand game in the donate pile when I noticed that my mother had written on it "Save for Tia.  For her little girl."

Needless to say, we now have 2 CandyLand games.

And there are 356 other things just like it.

The memories are overwhelming.

We were making the bed the last morning we were there (the only bed left in the house)

and Chris mentioned that we should tear it apart and take it out to storage because we probably just spent our last night in the house.

My heart sank.

My last night?

In the only house I ever knew until I grew up?

But then I remembered that we will need a place to sleep when we come back to get all the stuff we put in storage.

So I have one more weekend in that house.

Sigh.

I am grateful that Ellie is old enough she will remember it.

I loved growing up in that house.

And I want her to remember what it was like.

Here she is standing at the tree that held my tire swing, overlooking the field.

It's interesting though.

Going home used to mean going to Parker.

Now it means coming back to Cleveland.

It was a subtle shift of thinking.

I am not even sure when it happened.

But home is here now.

With my guy and my girl.

I will always look forward to going to Parker.

I love my people there.

And the slow easiness of the small town life.

But I will love coming home even more.

To the life I have now.