The House That Built Me...

Have you heard the new song by Miranda Lambert called The House that Built Me? I love, love, LOVE it. I could listen to it over and over...and sometimes it makes me cry a little. When I listen to it, I picture in my head the house that I grew up in. I was fortunate when I was growing up that we didn't move around. We moved into a white farm house on a hill when I was around 5, and we lived there until after I was gone to college.

It had an awesome yard...at least a couple acres I think. It was no fun to mow, but when you grow up in the country, you appreciate a big yard. It's your roaming place. Our yard was full of great hills...for rolling in the summer and sledding in the winter.

And great trees...my sister and I each "had" one for climbing. Hers was better than mine, but she would usually let me climb hers anyway. I can remember our neighbor Brian could climb all the way up (this was a big tree, people) and stick his head out the top! I never accomplished that feat. About a third of the way up, there was this great cluster of branches that sort of made a recliner...I sat there a lot in the summer...reading...thinking...dreaming. Don't get me wrong...I liked my climbing tree, but we LOVED Chelle's climbing tree. When I picture it in my mind, it is picture perfectly shaped and groomed. I'm sure it wasn't that way in real life, but I don't care to know that.

We had a big circular driveway that wrapped all the way around our house. I will never forget when I got my license and backed my car into my dad's car and he said, "How do you back into another car in a circular driveway??" I drove around with a crunched bumper my entire high school career.

Our house was just up the road from the Overton's....Bruce, Bonita, Bridget, and Brian...and their dog Kelly. Wonder to this day why he didn't have a B name. Anyway, Bruce and Bon were some of my parents best friends in high school, Bridget and I were best friends growing up, and Brian was the big brother Michelle never had. We were about three quarters of a mile apart, and spent endless summer days at one another's houses. Brian taught us girls how to play war, and we could hang with any boys who would come along looking for it. When it snowed, Bruce would load up the kids, and they would all come down for a day spent playing in the snow with us and then mom and Bonita would have hot chocolate ready for us when we were done. We would have weiner roasts in the back yards (no city ordinances when you live in the country either...pile up some sticks, light a match to 'em, call the neighbors in and you've got a cookout!) We had so much fun growing up with the Overton kids. Brian was killed in a car accident his senior year of high school...the night before prom. I was at a slumber party with Bridget when Bruce came to get her. That night is so etched into my brain. You never "get" death, but when you lose a childhood playmate when you're still a kid...that's rough. I can't picture our yard without thinking of Brian and Bridget growing up there with us...and when I think of growing up, I picture their house, too.

Inside our house, it was simple: a kitchen...with no dishwasher...that was me or Michelle!--no formal dining room, a family room--no formal living room, 3 bedrooms...but one was realllllly cold in the winter, so during the winter months, all three kids usually crammed into one, one bathroom with a bathtub...no shower!...and one sink, and a cellar basement. That's it. Nothing fancy. I remember my mom always trying to "fix up" our house. She always wanted it to look nice, but we didn't really have money to spend on that, so she did what she could. We got a lot of hand me down furniture, curtains, knick knacks, etc... I do remember once when she remodeled our kitchen. It was during the blue duck era...and she went at it full force!! My gosh there were ducks everywhere!!! And lots of blue hearts. But it looked nice, and she was proud of it.
I also remember in that kitchen one summer when Johnathan and I opened a can of refrigerated biscuits, rolled them into a ball, got a skillet, and played biscuit ball!! I really don't know if mom knows that to this day...There was a spot on the under side of the blue shelf where the biscuit dough stuck and left residue on there...still there the day we moved out.

Then there are the things I remember...I remember sitting at the bar in the kitchen and eating mom's homemade donuts on weekend mornings. Our house was a popular one for sleepovers...everyone loved those donuts. I remember playing in mom's wedding dress that she kept in the closet in the "cold" bedroom. I remember when the Giese's came to visit and we made mud clay from the driveway in the rain. I remember watching the movie Midnight Madness over and over and over because it was one of the only ones we had on a VCR tape. I remember when we got our loft beds from Uncle Ronnie...and how we were the envy of all of our friends. I remember learning in that house that our parents were getting a divorce...and even though I knew it was coming, feeling like I could have torn the place down with my fists. I remember spending countless hours on the phone with Kevin Brown...and then handing the phone off to Michelle because she was going out with his brother Doug. I remember Chelle leaving for college and feeling like she was taking a part of my heart with her...only not daring to say it. I remember packing up myself for college, and finding it strange that for the first time since I could remember, I would be crawling into a different bed at night. I remember coming home from college the day we had a yard sale...because after all, the house had sold, and we were moving on without so much "stuff". And I know that all of those things made me who I am...and that if you remove even one of those, I'm different. Maybe better, maybe not...but different.

And then, I remember the weekend I came back to my hometown to look up on the hill and see that the new family had torn down the house...our house...the house that built me...and it hurt....knowing I could never see the inside of that house again if I wanted to.

But you know what? Maybe that's ok. Maybe that house belonged to my sister, and me, and my brother...and maybe I don't really want other kids to make memories in our space. Maybe I just want it to be the house that built us...an no one else...