Strangers in my Home

Today I walked into my childhood home only to find it full of strangers.

Everything about the house, from the dusty rafters to the cool, clean tiles beneath my feet were as familiar to me as my shadow, as the acne scars on my face, as my constant boob sweat. The house wasn’t always comfortable - in the summer the indoor heat was more akin to hell, and my poor gay spirit sweltered under that very Christian environment as a teenager. There was no escape - the house was in the middle of two lackluster suburbs and the wood floors, ceilings, and walls creaked so much that any attempts at sneaking out would have been futile. There were times that I didn’t even bother to acknowledge when I “sinned” - why bother when you’re already there?

Even, so, it was where I grew up. Like any melodrama, there were also good times. There were holidays, dinners, surprise visits from relatives and plenty of gossip after. I was a very imaginative kid; all it took was a hand radio and permission to sleep under the living room rafters to feel like I was in another world.

During Christmas, I could spend hours watching the lights on our fireplace hearth blink on and off, dressed in awful 90’s era uni-colored sweater sets. Springtime meant spinning around on the living room floor after it had been polished and picking butterbeans with my favorite uncle. The summer was for watching my granny water the grass at golden hour, the water sparkling like crystals and making life seem so very simple. In the fall, I used to forced my sister to sit in the backyard with me to watch the sun rise into a pink and cherry blue sky. It was these moments that made that house feel like heaven.

The strangers make the house die a little bit, at least for me. They are infiltrating a space full of my memories - throwing those memories away as they move their stuff in. But I can’t be upset, not really. The house isn’t a museum, and unless I’m unfortunate enough to develop Alzheimer’s or a similar disease in my later years, my memories won’t die. Meanwhile they will make new memories in the rooms that helped make me. They will have trials, and the house will shelter them. They will have successes, and the house will hold their celebrations. One day the kid that’s sleeping in my old room will think back on the house as their personal heaven and hell, and hopefully when they hit 30, they’ll be happy to have known it.

I’m not religious today, but some lessons stick. One lesson that was taught constantly was that a building is not what makes a church. People make a church. It’s the same for houses. A house doesn’t make a home, and memories don’t require wood and nails to stay intact. As cheesy as this is, my childhood home will always be my childhood home, in my mind and heart. The strangers are irrelevant. If anything, the strangers imbue the house with more meaning. A house without people is just an empty house.

Despite the fact that I know these words are true, it doesn’t make me feel much better about the situation. I think that’s where memories of a place, of a life, become bittersweet. It will never be the same again. But that pain is also what makes memories special, and for the sake of the memories, and the realization that more can be made, I will risk pain.