My old house is like a time capsule.
Every box, every piece of trash on the ground exactly where
I left it.
Untouched.
The poor paint job, a reminder of my imperfect youth, my
short attention span.
It’s funny how when I look back, I see a happy, joyful scene
of ideal living, soft and fuzzy like one of those old 80’s family pictures.
This house is proof that my memories deceive me.
That wreath above the toilet. I remember when I was small and swore that
I’d become a vigilante street fighter when I was old enough to stare straight
into the center of it.
Now, I’m looking down at it.
Dust covers everything.
No one has stepped in here for three years.
That wreath hasn’t left the wall since it was first hung.
Walking down the hall I can still see cheerios on the
ground, that first morning we moved in here.
I was 3 years old. One of my
earliest memories. My mother was fixing
the light in the hallway standing on a chair.
The chair is still sitting in the kitchen. It’s hard to believe that was almost twenty
years ago.
I feel like crying and I don’t know why. Is this sad?
Am I overcome with happiness?
Something in my soul longs for that past. But why?
I remember being miserable. Every
night I would just pray that I could wake up and be eighteen years old. Going off to live my own life, no longer
burdened by laws and rules.
That dresser. My
friend had written all over it with a marker.
We had spray-painted it and the chair sitting next to it. A pentagram?
We were far too young to understand what that stood for.
And yet, here it sits a symbol of ignorance, the blissful ignorance
of Childhood.
I feel like I’m dead.
That child that once slept in here is dead. That child who won those trophies and awards
on the fireplace is dead. My brother,
whose trophies sit there next to mine is dead too. Everyone who lived in this house . . .
dead. But the house still remains,
frozen in time.
