I found my house.
No, really. I found my house.
One of you (it starts with a G and ends with a rasshopper) will be thinking that I've found the house I want to live in. That's usually what we say, isn't it? "I found my house! Here's the MLS!"
No...this really is my house. It's the house I grew up in. And it's online.
20 years ago, my parents built it in an area that held less than 20 houses combined...now they sport somewhere around 100 and it's THE place to live. I promise you it wasn't THE anything when I was growing up. It was on an island in Florida...no mall, no social life, and hardly any other kids my age.... It sucked ass. Maybe it would have been fun if I had enjoyed the beach, but I was a vampire (did I mention I was a vampire?) so the combination of Sun and sand was a deadly mix.
But it was home. It's where my persona as I know it was forged. From the tender age of 8 to the bitter age of 15, this is the place I stored everything that was important to me.
I wonder if Buttercup ever went there...did you? Do you remember it? Do you remember how god-awful ugly it was? Do you remember that it looked like the 70's drank a case of Bud and threw up all over it?
Well, it's had a face lift.
I knew it had been remodeled...when I was 20 or so I talked my best friend, Chris (miss you every day...but that's for another blog) into walking up to the front door and asking if we could come in and look around. I have to give props to the old couple living there - we were barely out of out teenager angst-phase, and our closets still consisted of black, black, and more black. I think Chris had pink hair at the time. And a lip ring. I never would have let us in, but they were amazingly gracious and gave us a grand tour.
It was heartbreaking.
Because no matter how ugly something is, it's missed when it leaves forever. That was no longer my house. "The house where I grew up" was gone forever.
Enough with the maudlin crap...time for some pics of the home that shaped the insanity called I:
This was my house...the front was never quite this pretty because - well, to be blunt, my mother has horrible taste. Grasshopper can attest to the aqua green walls and ceilings running throughout their current home. Why aqua green? It matched her bedspread. 'nuff said?
Now let's move to the living room.
Is that a fireplace? Wow...that would have been cool to have growing up. Sitting by a nice cozy fire in the 98 degree weather. That investment probably made the new owners giggle with glee.
This is the "new" look of course...the old look was, as I've stated before, puked out of a 1970's JC Penny catalog. Wood paneling, brown carpet, sectional sofa (my mother was so proud of that sofa) and a genuine television cabinet that also housed an 8-track. It was Hi-fi. Groovy.
It looked a little something like this:
That's the best I can do on such short notice. My time is almost up and we have SO much more to see!
If you look at the back of the picture, you'll see a sliding glass door that leads to...wait for the cleverness...the Florida Room. Yes, those special people get a whole room named after their State. "What could a Florida Room be?" you ask? A room with sunshine and orange groves?
Actually, it's just a closed in porch...but that doesn't sound ritzy enough when you invite the neighbors over for iced tea. Anyhoo...this is what one looks like in case you ever meet one in the street:
Ok...now I'm not feeling so guilty about my family's decorating skills. Hey! Is that a jug of Granny's medicine in the corner?
Off to the left is the kitchen. I spent many an hour washing pots and pans at that sink. We had a dishwasher, but for some reason my brother and I were forced to wash them by hand. Probably because my mother burned every meal she ever made, and the 1980's had yet to invent the Power-Washer Kenmore.
My father took 2 years to lay the floor in this house. It was parquet flooring and very expensive for the time, so they could only buy a few boxes at a time. I remember the moment he laid the last square in - he was so proud his heart nearly burst. Good to see the new owners have ripped it up and replaced it with generic machined planking. That is SO much more interesting than intricately designed parquet.
Time is running short, so let's move down to my brother's room...
This is the room I broke into hundreds of times over the years. He had all the best stuff. I stole every one of his his Journey and Foreigner tapes, and my love of Douglas Adams was born in this room. I stole his series and denied I did it. I think I blamed it on the old lady next door. Yeah, he totally believed me.
Further down the hall we come to....ready? To the room that cushioned the one and only. Yes, my room. The room where I spent hours pretending I was a teacher and, later, Madonna. The room that held the pillow I cried into when the boy I liked didn't ask me to the Dance. The room that housed various mice, parakeets, and even, once, a turtle. All my games and toys and art projects and.....
Oh. How boring. How generic. THAT is my room now?? Yuk. Seriously, yuk.
My mother, in her finest moment, decided that my room should be my favorite color. Yellow. That might have been nice, but it wasn't just a little yellow...it was ALL yellow. It looked like the urinal that the 70's took a piss in after too much beer. Yellow wallpaper with yellow designs on one wall, yellow paint on the others, yellow carpet, yellow bedspread, yellow curtains..... You get the idea. No? Well, it looked a little something like this:
Now you know why I'm insane.
Move on...the loss of my yellow room is making me nostalgic again. And I'm almost out of time....
Time for only one more stop. I wanted to give you the grand Tour, but I can't blow this BaD thing.
This is my Father's office:
Amazingly, it's exactly the same as it was when I was growing up. Apart from the lack of the pull-out Berber couch, it's like walking back in time. The door is still there...my Narnia door. That was the door I believed magical creatures lived behind. It's where my many imaginary friends stayed when I was at school. My parents forbid to open that door since it went to the attic, but my young imagination created a more bizarre, more outlandish, and ultimately more enjoyably explanation.
That was the door to another world. Maybe that world would be a better place than this one. Maybe?
Many an hour was spent in front of that door. If I was punished by my parents or if one of my friends was mean to me, I would stand in front of that door thinking that if I could just open it...just reach out and open it...then I could get away from the sadness I felt and go somewhere beautiful. Maybe. All I had to do was lift my arm...turn the handle...
But I always walked away. Maybe just the belief that I could escape was enough. Maybe because I knew it wasn't really a door to another world I could never really open it and see. Because if I had put my hand on the doorknob...if I had pulled it open...if I had seen that it was nothing but a hot, dusty attic in there, it could never again be that door to another world. And I needed that door.
Sometimes I wish that I could have walked away when I was 20. I wish I would have turned around and never put my hand on their doorknob. Sometimes I wish that I had never seen their clean, crisp whites and their remodeled bathrooms. Because now it can never be my house again.
And, sometimes, I need that house.
~
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