You Can Never Go Home Again

They say you can never go home again. But today I came across a real estate listing for the house I lived in from the time I was six or seven until I was seventeen. Ok, my mom stumbled across it and emailed it to me which kind of makes me wonder if she has the same habit of pouring over internet real estate listings and virtual tours that I have. I mean, I used to never understand how some married men could be into internet porn until I became addicted to internet real estate listings. I can look at them for HOURS. And I have a house. I even love my house. It is a nice house but I always like looking at other houses. Go figure.

But I digress. So this house, in Detroit, is pretty much the place that holds most of my childhood memories. I think I was six when we moved there but I might have been seven. My first memory of the house was after my parents bought it but before we moved in. Our old house was only a few blocks away. I walked home from school regularly with my friend Anna. My parents had shown me house and I sort of knew where it was so I figured that Anna and I could take a detour on the way home from school. But darn it if I couldnt find the sucker that day. I dragged poor Anna all over the neighborhood looking for it and eventually ended up one block over saying to Anna "I swear, it was here before. Honest!"


When we first moved in, I had to share a bedroom with my sister. But my folks decided that it would be better if we each had our own bedrooms since we were getting older. My Dad spent a lot of time finishing the attic into what became a seriously fabulous bedroom for a teenager. It had a bathroom and it was it's own floor so my music had to be pretty loud before it bothered anyone (that seemed to happen a lot anyways though). I wont mention though the hideous color *cough* lime green *cough* that they decorated with but it WAS the 70's so I suppose they can be forgiven. That bedroom was bigger than some apartments I have lived in. One of the really neat things about it was that my Dad built in a secret compartment and I made a little time capsule of stuff and put it in there. There is a part of me that would love to go see if that stuff was ever discovered but maybe it is just something best kept in my memory.

I had my second kiss in that house. I had my first real date come pick me up from that house. I learned Latin and Algebra while living in that house. I danced in that house. I plugged up the basement toilet by dumping the cat box in it. I set the garage on fire. I slid down the staircase in nylon sleeping bags. I ran indoors. I put on puppet shows. I covered the walls of that bedroom with posters of rock stars. I laughed a lot. I cried some.

My dad once commented that I would probably never live in as nice of a house again because they just didnt make them like that anymore. And while I love my current house (built in the same era, btw) and wouldnt even know what to do with 3000 sq feet as a single woman, I have to say that so far, my dad has been right. I have never lived in as good of a house as that one.