My Favorite Place(s)
Last weekend while Matt and I were in Illinois, we drove past our old house – our first house.
Our connections to that house are many.
Matt lived there for a while during high school, then years later, we bought it from his dad.
Matt and I spent our first shared Christmases there – not just our first Christmas as a married couple, but also our first Christmas together – ever. (Matt’s parents had a VCR tucked under the tree for me that year.)
The new owners (friends of ours) were out in the driveway Saturday morning and invited me and Matt to come inside. They’ve done a lot to the house – new siding, a new roof, they got rid of the carpet on the stairs and in the dining room, they replaced the old laminate countertops I use to line with popcorn balls every year at Halloween… but it is still undeniably that house.
That house holds a special place in my heart – where we painted – inside and out, where we put little plastic candles in the windows at Christmas, where we hosted Matt’s 29th birthday fiesta complete with a piñata and sparkler candles.
That house lingers in my mind with only the fondest memories standing out. My gut instinct is to think that life was simpler then, but I know it wasn’t. Not at all.
We lived in that house when Matt was laid off mere days after I brought home my brand-new Ford Edge complete with a thick book of payment slips… We lived in that house when Matt’s mom died.
A lot of tears were shed in that house, and yet… my memories are mostly happy ones.
Every Norah Jones’ song I hear takes me back to that house. Back to her voice floating from the stereo upstairs, back to that kitchen with the extra bank of cabinets that didn’t quite match the rest, back to that living room and the gas fireplace we huddled around our first winter living there, thinking we were saving money on our utilities by keeping the furnace turned down low. (Not at all the case.) Back to the row of trees behind the house, obscuring the view of the bike trail in the summer, turning bright reds and yellows in the fall. Back to the mere handful of days each year where we could comfortably use the sunroom that had been added onto the side of the house.
Sometimes I wonder if our friends decided to sell that house, would I be tempted to buy it back? And the answer is yes, I would be tempted – IF that house could be moved to Florida… IF it could be a row of palm trees behind the fence and I’d never have to shovel that driveway again… IF Otto (our first pug) were still there… IF I could be promised only happy memories would come from owning that house again..
Instead, I will continue to make new memories in each new place we live – memories I’ll collect the same way I collect seashells in a jar – little reminders that I was there, that I’d made an impression on a place (even if it was a temporary one)… Little reminders that all the places I’ve lived will always be my favorite places.
