I didn't take a lot of pictures in September. September was kind of a crazy month. It was a rough start to a school year. I had a challenging group of students and there were many changes in staff, which is always hard because you have to help a lot of people get going as well as worrying about your own stuff. We were implementing a new state curriculum and attending lots of training for that. So, although things normally slow down from the crazy start of the year around Labor Day, things were still crazy stressful at that point. Then, everything began to move in fast motion beginning with the sale of our house. Our house, but first, my house.
My mom and I moved to this house in August of 1987. I was 5. I was entering first grade. That is a long time to live in a house. That is a lot of memories.
We moved the last weekend in September. As I walked through the empty house taking pictures, I felt a little like one of my favorite movie families (the family from "Father of the Bride"). This is from the second movie when they sell their family home and the mom and daughter are taking pictures of everything. The mom asks did you get a picture of the tree in the backyard and the daughter tearfully says, "just a roll." There were so many things to remember, but as I walked through my empty house, I couldn't really figure out what to take a picture of. So, I just started snapping some pictures. But, what I realized was that these pictures captured nothing. The memories had been captured by pictures past, some photographs and some just stored in my mind. The memories were captured in rooms full of furniture and toys, laughter, talking, sometimes yelling, but always love. The pictures I took on that last day in my empty house held nothing. The memories were inside.
For example, when I look at this picture of the living room I don't see the empty room here. I see a room many years before with brown baseboards and white walls and flowered couches. I see my clothes stacked on the back of the couch, freshly laundered by my mom waiting for me to take up the stairs. I hear my mom fussing about me walking right past them again and again and even going down to the couch to get something to wear instead of actually carrying them up and putting them away. I see my mom standing at the bottom of the balcony calling up to me. I see the "formal" Christmas tree in the window. I see the flat gold ornaments we put on each year. I can see the little angel ornament from my first Christmas and the little dog with Pepper engraved on it. I see a young girl sneaking downstairs before dawn on Christmas morning to check out what Santa brought and then sneaking back upstairs to wait for everyone else to wake up. I see a new, blended family celebrating their first Christmas full of dolls and transformers. I smell a real fire burning in the fireplace, keeping us warm when the power was out during the big blizzard of 93. I see me accepting my corsage for my senior prom and taking pictures with my neighbors all watching. I see wedding presents stacked up everywhere and the computer where I sat and worked on wedding arrangements in those months between college and marriage. I see Matthew painting and working to redo the room, recreating our living room in our first condominium as a married couple. I see us decorating our first real Christmas tree together while expecting our first child. I see our sweet babies running into the room with crazy hair and big smiles on Christmas morning. I hear the laughter and smiles and wrapping paper flying around. I feel the love. The pictures that flash back through my mind have nothing to do with this empty room that I see before me.
When I see this picture I can feel my socks sliding across the floor as I pretended to ice skate after watching figure skating in the Olympics. I can feel my heart swell with the music as I danced in my ballet clothes in my own ballet studio. I see a little boy pretending to hunt and fight imaginary evil in his superhero clothes with all of his weapons carefully laid out. I see Pokemon cards spread out in neat rows all over the rug as he checks to see how many he has. I hear little feet running to the front door to meet the Schwan's man and get their popsicles and ice cream. I hear the doorbell. I feel the weight of the front door as I pull it open because it sticks a little. Especially in the summer.
And this room, oh my goodness, this room. I see a red bedroom suit with a strawberry bedspread, but just for a very short while. I see a twin bed and furniture around the room. I see Blue Devil stickers on the mirror taken off my cheek after ballgames. I see a bulletin board with so many layers of memories I'm surprised it doesn't fall off the wall. I see a TV with a Nintendo connected and Super Mario Brothers on the screen while Vanilla Ice plays on the tape player. I hear the Top 40 countdown as I record it on cassette tape so I can listen to it later. I see my very own telephone, with my very own telephone number and even an answering machine! I hear my late-night conversations with friends while we watched MTV videos and talked about everything under the sun. I taste the salty tears from heartbreak and disappointment. I see the pages of my diary. I can smell my sheets and comforter. I can hear my mom's footsteps on the stairs and feel her hand on my head as she sat by my bed when I was sick. I feel the whispered secrets of a childhood spent in this room. I can see this room as I saw it when I spent the night before my wedding in it, not sleeping a wink. This was my room.
But there's more to this room. When I look at this room, I see pale blue walls and a crib with bugs on the sheets. I feel tiny little clothes beneath my fingers as I fold them and put them away. I smell the most wonderful smell on Earth, the smell of my baby's head as I rock him to sleep. I see a precious baby boy sleeping in the crib. This was my first baby's nursery. I see green walls with tractors and a familiar twin bed. I see a little toddler with blonde hair the sweetest dimples ever. I feel little arms as I read bedtime stories. This was my toddler's room. I see the walls as they are now and see a big boy having his first sleep over here. I see him playing Legos and reading to me in bed. I hear him saying his prayers. This was my boy's room.
And then there's this room. A playroom for me for a short time. It seemed like the biggest room I'd ever seen with my toys in it. And then a room for two new brothers. Loud music, teenage boy things. I didn't go in there very often :). But, later, a guest room. A room I desperately wanted to turn into something else, but disappointment kept it a guest room until...
finally one day, it was painted for a little girl. I see Matthew and Evan painting her room as she turned and kicked inside my tummy. I see two closets full of the tiniest dresses you've ever seen. I see a precious baby girl sleeping in a pink flowered crib.
I see a sweet little face as she jumps on and off her big girl bed! Thrilled that she is growing up. I hear a precious little voice and feel those sweet little arms as she wraps them around my neck.
This was my baby girl's room and one of the most beautiful rooms I've ever seen.
When I look at this room, I can see my mother pretending to be a bug with her fingers and pinching me, teasing me as we lay in this bed together when I was very young. I can feel her arms around me when I came down and got in her bed in the middle of the night. I can feel the floor as I slept beside their bed in blankets because of nightmares thinking I just wanted to be near my mom. I see my mom sitting at her vanity putting make-up on. I hear countless mother-daughter conversations. I see a pack-n-play beside our bed with our sweet little babies inside. I see baby-stuff everywhere and a TV cabinet full of diapers. I see kids snuggled in our bed watching cartoons in the morning. This was our bedroom.
Of course the kitchen holds a multitude of memories. Smells, meals, people, laughter, love. I see my mom cooking my favorite pot roast. I remember learning and experimenting with cooking myself in this room. Christmas breakfasts with my grandparents. Meals for my family. Kids eating at the bar. Birthday parties in the dining room. Friends and family over for dinner. The heart of the house is the kitchen.
And the family room. I remember running around in the construction when this room was built pretending to act out the "I Am 16, Going on 17" scene from the Sound of Music. I see teenage girls in sleeping bags all over the floor during multiple slumber parties. I see a neighborhood kids all lined up on the brown sectional sofa watching TV. I see our own little boy crawling for the first time toward a laundry basket. I see him taking his first steps from the family room to the kitchen with his little arms in the air. I see him talking to his baby sister laying on a blanket on the floor making her smile. I see her inside her play yard surrounded by a million of his toys, with practically no floor showing. I see him setting up his tractors for tractor tipping on the chair. I see her rolling over for the first time on her play mat. I see her letting go and taking her first steps across this room. I see them setting up tents and pretending to camp. And a million of other days of just playing, watching TV, and being a family in this room.
The playroom is a newer addition to the house. I remember deciding to have it built to hold the millions of toys our little 18 month old boy was accumulating. I remember him playing with his tool bench and kitchen out there. I remember happily setting up doll beds and putting baby dolls out for my little girl. And of course organizing and reorganizing this room again and again.
Dinners on the porch both with my parents and my very own family. I remember coming outside while Matthew mowed and I was pregnant with Evan and falling asleep to the sound of the mower and the smell of the grass. I remember our sweet dogs laying out here.
I remember when there was no playground or fence in this yard. Instead, it was wide open and all the neighborhood children ran through it between each other's houses. I remember playing with a little black furball of a puppy in this backyard. I remember the fence holding two sweet and protective German Shepards. I remember Matthew building the playground for a very excited little boy and then adding on to it over the years. I remember kids riding tractors and gators around and around and around at birthday parties. Slip-n-slides, kiddie pools, water hoses. Baseball, kickball, football. Obstacle courses. Pushing my sweet babies on the swings.
This was my home. From childhood to a family of my own.
This was my home. This was our home.
But, as I walked through the empty house that day, I realized that it was our home no longer. It was a shell. It didn't feel the same. It didn't smell the same. It didn't look the same. It didn't sound the same. It was our home, but we were moving to a new home. We were taking all the things that made it our home with us. All the memories, the laughter, the love.
And so, I wasn't really sad as I left the shell of our home. I was leaving that house to go home. For home is and always will be where my family is.
