Kelley's Realm of Writing: Home

Monday, April 11, 2016

Monday Musings: Do memories reside in your home or do they exist in any place you call home?

I come from a family of gypsies, not in the sense that we have gypsy blood, though I wouldn’t discount that, but in the sense that we moved all the time when I was a child, and my parents continued to move well into my adulthood. They just moved from the dream house they had built and had no trouble leaving it behind.

How do they do this?

I know so many people who refuse to leave a home they have lived in for many years because “all of their memories are in that home.”

Now, you would think that I’d be like my parents, having moved so much, but I am not. My husband, on the other hand, who’d lived in the same house since he was born, has no problem moving.

See, I get attached to things. And I’m having trouble with our latest move. We made the decision to downsize. It’s for all the right reasons, but I’m having trouble letting go of the home we lived in for 15 years, the longest I’ve ever lived in any home. There are so many memories there—good and bad—but for me there is a special energy in that house and it’s hard for me to leave it behind.

There is the beautiful, large Palo Verde tree we planted and is what I call, “the tree of life,” because of all the wildlife that gathers around that tree. There are my desert iguanas, Mr. and Mrs. Godzilla, I see each year in spring and summer and are more like pets than wild animals.

There are so many great memories of my dogs that have since passed away.

There are memories of when we first moved into the house and how excited and happy we were to be embarking on a new path in life.

There are also the not-so-good memories of struggling to get through the Great Recession, but we prevailed, mostly unscathed, from that troubling time and found hope again.

Will I forget all of that once I have left that home behind?

I sure hope not.

As I settle into our new home, surrounded by my possessions and photographs, I sense a new special energy forming like a familiar, comfortable blanket. I think it’s clear to me now. My memories live inside me. They are a part of me. I will still have my old memories and will make new ones here in this place I now call home.