Feeling: conflicted and nostalgic out the wazoo
Listening to: Radiohead - House of Cards
Reading/Watching: The Proposal

I turned a year old just after my parents moved into their house in Hometown.

Since then, I have learned to walk, then talk, then sing. I started kindergarten, told Andy Helton to "shut up" in first grade and went to the principal for the only time in my life.

I toasted a lot of New Years, unwrapped a lot of Christmas presents. I used to sneak downstairs to watch the Christmas tree lights twinkle, because I loved them so much I'd fall asleep with the sparkles burned into my corneas.

The living room walls had patterns in the wood that reminded me of the skexies from The Dark Crystal. I was convinced my parents' long dark curtains harbored tall, thin Shadow People who would steal me away if I slept in my parents' bed alone. I practiced that special leap off my mattress, the one designed to exceed the ankle-grabbing radius of the monster under the bed. I played Bloody Mary in the bathroom... and lived to tell the tale.

I hit puberty, cried myself to sleep, counted the star stickers on my ceiling, hung up pictures of Devon Sawa and Brad Renfro and (of course) Prince William. I practiced hypnotism with my sister, and it always worked on her, but never on me.

I got my period in that house. I turned thirteen. I went to highschool. I put on a homecoming dress that showed my knees for the first time since I was about eight. I walked down the stairs dressed for senior prom, wearing long white gloves and a dark purple satin dress with my hair french-braided, feeling like a movie star.

I wrote about a dozen books, a hundred short stories, twice as many horrible, horrible poems. I cried and panicked as I packed for college. I gritted my teeth and put publishers' query letters into the mail for my first, cute, hopeful little novel. I groaned and rolled my eyes because my parents just didn't Understand me.

I came home from college for the first time, feeling about thirty. I brought a Boy home to that house. I celebrated my engagement there, planned my wedding there, and then sat tightly enclosed in my mother's arms while I sobbed over my divorce.

And now, today, I am twenty-seven going on fifty, and my parents have announced that they are selling it. They're moving into something bigger, nicer, and they'll be out by the end of the month. Surprise!

Well, okay, fine, move all your stuff out. But the skexies in the wood walls will remain. And so will the plastic records I shoved between the edges of the stairs. And all those lost socks. The people can go where they like, but some things will always remain.

I hope the next people to live there have as much fun as we did.

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