home, sweet

This is the house that I grew up in....it no longer exists in this form. My family moved to a different state the year before I got married, and the new owners changed it considerably.

I go back to our home town every now and again, and I'm so thankful that my old house doesn't look like this. It's one of those things you'd rather remember in your heart in your own way.

Right through that front door was the living room. With really tall ceilings. The room in which we put up our Christmas tree.

To the left, through a double door was the piano room. Off the piano room was a bathroom and a cedar closet. Through a little hall was the family room, and then the kitchen. There was a little back porch you could access from a glass door off the dining room, which was at the back end of the living room.

That front bedroom was my parents. It had a closet that we liked to play in. My youngest sister's room was next, her bed was lofted. And her windows were Cinderella style. My bedroom was next, and the coolest. My bed was built in, and high. With curtains I could pull to really close myself off from the world. Or my sisters. (Mostly my sisters.) The back bedroom was the biggest, with the highest ceiling. And was shared by my older and younger-middle sisters.

I can walk through every room, down every hall, each nook and cranny in my mind. I can run down the steps and skip the last 7 by using the railings. I can play the piano, pick the rhubarb, and not mow the lawn because I had mono--and an appendectomy.

I can see the neighbor's dog in the snow on the mountain. I can hear our stupid cocker spaniel howling. I can make a snow angel and hide in the best hide and seek spot on our block.

I can ride my bike.

I can sit by my warm vent in the winter not wanting to move.

I can walk to school.

And to The Store.

But only in my mind.

Which is where it counts, really.