Growing Up In Oz

After over 22 years in the same house, my parents are moving out of my childhood home.

I’ve held off writing about this because I don’t want to make anyone in my family who reads this cry and because well, I don’t want to cry myself. It seems so strange to me to have so much emotion tied into a pile of bricks but then you start to think about everything that happened in that house.

Sleepovers and pool parties. Getting ready for prom. Finding out I had cancer. My bridal shower. Getting dressed in my wedding gown. My baby shower. BOTH of my daughters’ first Christmas morning.

All of those memories will be left within those four walls, a time capsule buried in the back of my mind.

I’ll never forget the day I changed the number for “Home” in my cell phone. Clint and I were engaged and had been living in our house for several months. I was in the midst of something pretty trivial, filling out a form or signing up for some promotion, when I realized that I didn’t remember our land line number. I picked up my cell phone to look it up under the entry “Home” and there stood the number for my parent’s house. After much fumbling I found our land line number, tucked away in the “Home” line of Clint’s entry in my Contacts List and I thought long and hard about having to change it.

For years after that I would still push the number “4″ to pull up Home when I wanted to get my parent’s house. Only to be quickly reminded that it was now listed under “Mom and Dad-Home.”

Luckily, my parent’s have found an absolutely beautiful new house to call their home. It is about the same distance they are now and has everything they want, including a one-story layout. There are many new memories to be made in this new house. We will create new traditions starting this Thanksgiving. My girls will have much more land to run around on… even room for a swing set.

I can’t help but think about the first time we will get in the car to head to Sunday dinner. Will I head in the direction of their old house? Will it feel like we are in a stranger’s house? Only time will tell. I look forward to all of the amazing things this new house will be for my parents. I’m excited about the future.

But part of me weeps just a tiny bit for the red brick house on Autumndale Drive. I hope those four walls experience lots of love and laughter from their new family and I hope that family knows that they are in a really special place. One that will always make me smile. One that will in some small way… always be home.

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