As the girls and I were driving around the other day, a song came on the radio called, "The House That Built Me" by Miranda Lambert. Generally, I am not a country fan, but what I do like about country music is that the songs usually tell a story. Sometimes, they even tell stories about other things, besides messy break-ups and troubled relationships. I love the story this song tells, it means something to me. It's about a girl who goes back to the house she grew up in and the memories she has there. She tells the owner if she can just walk around for a minute that maybe the brokenness inside of her can be healed.
As a kid, I couldn't wait to grow up and get out there in the "real world." I wish I hadn't been in such a rush to grow up, not that I didn't really LIVE my childhood, I did. I have great memories of growing up. I loved being part of such a big family. We didn't have much technology back then (except for Atari, which I happened to be very good at.) Most of the time, we had to use a little something called "imagination." We had great imaginations, we played store, bank, church, and house. We roller skated, flew kites, rode big wheels and bikes.
My favorite thing to do was to play dollhouse with my younger sister, Jennifer. We spread different sized books all over the floor and these would serve as the individual rooms in the mansions we built. We made furniture for each room out of blocks. We had couches, love seats, coffee tables, lamps, beds, dressers, full kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, everything you could think of that would make a comfortable home. Our "families" were the fisher price dollhouse people. They fit perfectly in the furniture we built. We would play dollhouse for hours and hours. It was one of our favorite things to do.
Each of the homes I grew up in have special memories for me. Especially the ones on Caballo Court, Lamplighter, and River Heights Blvd. I can close my eyes, and in my mind, still travel around the rooms of each home. These houses mean a lot to me because within their walls, I came to know myself, who I was and what I was about. They were places where I felt safe and believed that anything was possible in life. I could do anything and be anything.
A few years ago, we went through San Jose and I stopped to visit the Caballo house. I wanted so badly to walk through it again and see it through my adult eyes. The lady who lived there told me very firmly and rudely, that was NOT a possibility. I felt sad, but could understand why she wouldn't want a perfect stranger in her home...I wasn't a stranger to the house though.
Recently, on another trip, my sister and I stopped at the River Heights house. I don't know how I had the courage to knock on the door after my last rejection, but the desire to see it again was strong. A very kind lady opened the door and when we told her we used to live there, she was excited and asked us to come inside and look around. They had completely re-done the house. The only thing that looked familiar was the two-way, floor to ceiling rock fireplace that separated the dining room from the living room. Even though nothing looked the same, it was so good to walk through and "feel" it and re-live the memories there.
I guess that's why this song means something to me. When I got out in the real world, all the stresses and pressures of life seemed to overwhelm me. Sometimes, I even felt like I had lost myself. In essence, going back and visiting my childhood homes helped recapture, if only for a moment, a time that almost felt forgotten. A time when I didn't have to worry about the pressures and worries of today. A time where all I had to think about was what fun thing I was going to do next. Lately, I have been thinking about how small a child's world really is, and how the older you get, the larger the world becomes. I hope my children will enjoy the short time they have left at home and not grow up to fast. You can never really go back once you leave, you can visit and have happy times, but it is never the same. The houses that "built me" will live on, even if they're only memories now.
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