Today, home to me is an old farmhouse with five bedrooms, two bathrooms, situated on 5.5 acres, built in the early 1900’s. My husband, David, and I bought the house on August 5, 2009, a month before we got married. Before we moved in there was a bit work to be done, a new well, fix front of the foundation; which showed signs of giving out, completely gut out the bathroom, and of course, painting. At nineteen years old, a little paint didn’t sound like a big deal, until of course, I was the only one painting five large rooms. The excitement of painting quickly died after completing the first room. However, the excitement of, “This is ours! This is really OUR house!” still hasn’t died.
From birth to about four years old, home meant a two bedroom trailer behind my grandparents house in East Dover. Looking at pictures, it’s a miracle the four of us even lived in the trailer comfortably without getting on each others nerves from the lack of space, especially with two kids two years apart. But we made it work, my older brother, Daren, and I shared a room, that had just enough space for our toddler beds, toy box, and some space to play. Sadly, our room was the biggest of the two, my parents bedroom was big enough for a full size bed and one dresser, and just enough room to dress and shut the door. Almost all of the pictures I’ve looked at when we lived in that trailer consisted of us playing outside. Mom said every day it was nice out we were outside, the small space didn’t tire us out enough to go to bed easily she said. At the age of three my parents told us we were going to have another sibling, which meant we needed a lot more space, our tiny trailer wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
Home quickly went from a two bedroom trailer behind my grandparents to a four bedroom ranch on 4 acres in Dexter. This would be my home for the next fifteen years, until I moved out at nineteen. It took time settling into our new home, especially for Daren and I. Mom said that when she got up to tend to our new baby brother at night, she found either Daren in my room sleeping on the floor or me in Daren’s room sleeping on the floor. Our biggest challenge was having our own bedroom, she didn’t think we were scared of sleeping alone in our own room, but we had just been used to having each other. That phase lasted about two months, and once we finally got settled into our new home, we took full advantage of a bigger house with a bigger yard. As we all got older, home to all of us became different. Daren moved on the bored of Maine, living in an apartment and has started his own family, and my younger brother has started college, living on campus at a college down south as well.
As for me, home for the last three years has been in the old farmhouse that David and I bought, fixed up, and moved into together. We have more space than we know what to do with, which has lead to three bedrooms being ‘storage’, a word we use to justify the unorganized rooms piled up with our stuff. Our dog has plenty of room to run around, and David to ride his four-wheeler and snowmobiles. The house may be too big for us right now, but as our family grows, the space will start to shrink as it becomes our children’s first home.
There! Bingo!
ReplyDeleteI know you know this piece is a keeper--the writing is dripping with confidence in the material and in your approach to it. I'm always happy when a rewrite really scores, because I'm always a little hesitant to assign them, softie that I am.
Anyway, you give us three houses: present, far past, past, and present again, all laid out for the reader in the most accessible way imaginable.
Submit this to the Eyrie?