It Will Always Be

This seems to be a theme. Sorry but I have one last thing I need to write on this subject and then I'm done.

Saturday was moving day for my parents. A big day. A momentous day. They haven't moved in 27 years, so it felt like an event. I got there at 9 and said hello to aunts and uncles, my grandmother and my parents. They were excited and their eyes were gleaming. They looked younger, with an exuberance and a determination that was more in line with a pair of 20 year olds heading out for new adventures. How can you blame them? Moving into a new home is exciting. It's a fresh start and a clean slate to build another chapter of life. I was happy for them. I shared in their excitement and joy. I was proud of them for being brave and going after change with gusto.

I was also tired. I'd had very little sleep, three hours to be exact, since Jennifer and I had played a show that night. The show ended up being a family birthday party that lasted late into the night. But despite my tiredness, the spirit of moving day was pretty infectious. It was warm and secure. It was family pitching in to make this strange transition familiar and happy. These folks who were now moving furniture and cleaning floors were the same ones who had inhabited the old house for birthdays and graduations. Somehow, it didn't seem so bad as the house emptied bit by bit.

I got to see the new place for the first time and was impressed at the beauty of the new house. Warm, inviting and perfect for Mom and Dad. Dad has a darkroom now. Mom has a craft room and a spa bathtub. There is considerably less yard, so they don't have to spend a whole day doing it. There are big areas for family and gatherings. There's a room for babies to play in. This house holds the future and it's just about perfect. It very much felt like a place you could call home. It's a place my children can easily know as Grandpa and Grandma's house. And it made the day easier. It made the transition a little less hard.

It took about three loads to clear everything out. The last area to be cleared out of the old house was the garage. Up to that point, it wasn't so bad as most of the furniture was all stuff that Mom and Dad had bought after we moved out for college. Sure, we sat on most of it, but it wasn't the same stuff that we had played on and sat on for most of our youth. However, the garage ended up being another story. There's something about a garage that holds a lot of memories. You really don't get rid of garage stuff very often. Why throw away a tool when it works just fine? As I loaded out the garage, I began to notice things that had always been there my entire life. The tire iron with four ends on it. The benches where the skill saw would sit. My grandpa's old miter box and his Craftsman tool set that had sat in my dad's red toolbox in the same spot in the garage for years. Rakes and ladders, all of these damn things holding more memories than I thought they had. We dug out back for some things that Dad had stored for the winter. I found an old sprayer that we used to use to keep the weeds down in the yard. Just sitting back there looking unused but damn it if it didn't throw me back.

By the time the garage was emptied I was up to my neck in memories and feelings of our days in that house. Who knew a garage held so much? I had to play that night, so I knew I'd have to start getting home, but I asked Dad if he minded me taking one last walk through the house. He let me in and I promised to lock up before I left.

I walked in, closed the door behind me and took a look at the now empty living room. And I lost it. I couldn't help it or control it. I just, simply, lost it and dissolved into sorrowful tears. I had no idea that this would happen, I didn't see it coming. I thought I was doing pretty well. I felt bad about it on some level. I didn't even cry at either of my grandfather's funerals but here I was, a wreck staring at an empty house. But I kept going. I walked slowly through each room, allowing the memories to unfold in my mind. Sometimes the tears would turn to laughter as I remembered something that happened. Like the slippery spot on the kitchen floor that would always make us wipe out. I took my time and looked at each room, knowing this was the last time I would ever see these sights again. Would ever smell how that room smelled. The bathroom where I took baths and played with toys. The bedroom that my brother and I shared. The place were Justin drew his comic books and impressed me with his young art works. The spot where I watched cartoons and the places where I kissed old girlfriends.

I took a look downstairs and looked in the crawlspace where all our old possessions used to be stored. All empty with only some cartoon characters Justin had drawn on the walls a long time ago. The last reminder that the Hilden's had lived here. I found a spot down there. A spot where I had pounded nails when we were building the house. I must have been three. I did that, on whim, because it seemed fun. But it was my mark on the house. My spot. And it was time to let it all go.

I took one last tour through the home, thanking it for holding us and keeping us safe. Letting us grow to be who we are today. I walked out, locked the door and took one last look at the place I had called home. I drove away and didn't look back, preferring to hold that last image in my mind.

It was more than just a house I felt like I was letting go. It felt like I was finally letting go of that life that belongs to childhood and growing up. That, as I become a father of my own child and a husband to my perfect wife, I now build my own home. That it's time to let the old things go and fully commit to what lies ahead and allow the future to be the object of the most passion and the most love. You can't really do that with a foot in the past. Yet, it's heartbreaking to let that past part of you go. It's precious and familiar and a part of you. As necessary as it may be, it is still hard and sorrowful. In the space of one year, I will have become a husband and a father. Life has changed at a rapid pace, and I would have it no other way. But because of that, this moment of my parents moving has taken on a much greater significance in my life. It's really more than just a house, and more than just a move. At least, that's how it is for me. And I know that it is and was important for me to fully experience every moment of this, in order for me to be everything that I want to be for my own wife and child.

And I believe I did.

On that spot, the spot with the nails, I wrote a small note. I'm sure it will be covered over or taken off but I don't care. I wanted to commemorate the event somehow. So I wrote a small thing. Saying that this was home. We lived here and this was home. In my heart, it will always be.