You are the first place I ever came home to.
The first place I ever dreamed.
You witnessed my first ouchie,
My first broken heart,
My first loss.
And you held me in the cradle of your bosom
As I recovered and grew into a new person each time.
You’ve sheltered me from storms
Both external and internal.
My feet have worn paths through your hallways.
My laughter has bounced off the bedroom walls
That were once adorned with posters
Of Devon Sawa and Brad Pitt.
I’ve grown, both literally and figuratively
Within your embrace.
I secluded within you on 9/11.
I healed within you after my car crash,
And mended broken bones and sprained ankles.
I isolated within you during a pandemic.
Together, we’ve watched my parents grow up,
Grow older,
And pass on to their next life.
You’ve witnessed the coming and going of friends.
The arrival of lovers.
The departure of enemies.
You’ve watched as we’ve celebrated with family
Until the family gatherings ceased
And the family dissipated
Like the smoke of a campfire
On a windy autumn night.
Fish swam in circles within your confines.
Cats, dogs and ferrets have wandered your halls
And turtles, bunnies and birds have occupied your backyard,
So many of which are lovingly laid to rest on your grounds.
It is easy to leave you.
I am moving on to something new; something that belongs to me now.
Something that fits my changing needs.
Something where I can start over.
It is easy to leave you.
It is easy to leave the peeling paint and the failing ceilings.
It is easy to leave the stained carpet and the uncertain wiring.
It is easy to leave you.
To leave the memories of warm embraces I will never feel again.
To leave the echoes of laughter I will no longer hear.
For these reasons, it is easy to leave.
But for a million reasons more, it is difficult.
It is the shedding of a comfortable skin I have worn
For over 40 years,
Leaving the fresh new skin
Raw and vulnerable and exposed.
It is leaving behind the only safe space I have ever known
And venturing out into the abyss,
Hoping and praying like hell
That I can find and make a new safe space
Wherever I may go next.
It is the hope that my brain is strong enough
To pack up the memories that you hold and
Carry them with me
While being simultaneously terrified
That I might leave something behind.
A story in the dent in the bathroom wall.
A tale in the handprint on the stair rail.
A life’s work in the way that you were lovingly built
And turned from a hollow shell
Into the loving home that has cradled me all these years.
Leaving you is easy for so many reasons,
And frustratingly difficult for so many more.
Soon, I will make donations of clothing and odds and ends
That will not find their place in my new home.
And with them, shed even more loving memories.
Soon, barren walls will have rectangular imprints
From the portraits that used to hang there for years.
Soon, the recliner where I used to watch my father
Peacefully dozing will belong to someone else.
Slowly, you will look less and less like the home we have made
Returning to an aged version of the shell you once were.
We’ve left our mark on you.
You’ve changed, too, over the years.
Your kitchen isn’t the same.
Your walls aren’t the same white they were when we first started.
Your original brown carpeting only exists upstairs now,
Worn through with a lifetime of the pitter-patter of our feet.
Soon, for the first time in my life, my belongings will all be
Packed away.
Carted away.
Never to return here.
Soon, I will close the door
And turn over my key.
Never to return to your loving embrace again.
You won’t be my home anymore.
You’ll just be a house.
And that is as hard for me to fathom
As the countless stars in the sky
And the infiniteness of the universe.
But I know, now, that in leaving your mark on me-
I’ve left my mark on you.
The ghost of the girl I was
Will continue to live in your rooms.
My mother’s laughter will
Continue to echo in your halls.
The things my father built
Will continue to live within the walls.
The love that we shared will always live here.
And the memories we built within will always live within me.
I guess, just maybe, that makes it a little easier to carry on.
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