Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The House that Built Me (A song by Miranda Lambert) a memory by ME
So, I don't blog often. I start to write a blog and then think...who else besides MAYBE my husband wants to hear this stuff??! But today, or yesterday rather, I think I did something that is blog worthy. Here goes...
I hear this song by Miranda Lambert all the time and I am constantly reminded of the home that built me. I dream about my childhood house constantly. There are so many happy memories of swimming in the back yard, playing hide and seek with street friends out front, learning how to ride a bike for the first time, and all the other wonderfully childish things of yesteryear. My old house, back in Westminister California is a place where time was much easier, friendlier, and happier for a lot of reasons. When we left that house, I was ONE angry kiddo. I blamed my parents (being almost a teenage girl I now realize that was the typical thing to do) and I made the choice (now I realize I CHOSE it) to be very unhappy and miserable. There where instances and situations that didn't help my adjusting to my new home (like being bullied CONSTANTLY from 7-10th grade....threats of having my head bashed in by girls in the locker room, NASTY rumors and comments by the girls at school and other organized establishments, let's just say I am grateful daily that I didn't go to high school during Facebook)
Our new home had a lovely back yard, but the pool where we spent literally EVERY day of summer with diving board plus slide was just not there. The front yard where we let our puppies romp and play was some 35 miles away. And so my dreams of my old home were always in my mind. I would go back from time to time and drive by it over the years, but that was it, until yesterday.
Yesterday we drove out to Long Beach to pick up something from Craigs List. On the way back, the boys and I were headed home on the 405 when the Miranda Lambert song started playing in my head. So we exited Beach Blvd and headed over to my old home. There were a couple of cars in the drive way, and the place looked so much the same. The thought crossed through my mind "I have two little children, surely if I knock on the door I won't seem like some crazy person if I bring the kids along!" So I carried Connor and walked Joel up to the door, we knocked, and a very nice man answered. I explained who I was and he asked "is your last name Bouslog?" I told him it WAS...he told me they still get mail for us...some 20 years later we are still getting mail there! LOL He invited the boys and me in and we were able to walk around. It was so wonderful to get to show Joel where I used to eat breakfast in the morning before school, the room where we had our very first Apple computer set up to play games on a green and white monitor. The man led us out back and I got to show Joel my old playhouse (now turned into a storage shed) where my friends and I would have tea parties and sing and dance. And then the pool...oh how glorious it was to see my old pool! And all of the dreams I have had about that pool really were correct! It is one of THE biggest backyard pools I have ever seen. I wondered in years past if it was just because I was a kid that the pool had seemed to big, but no it is about 7-8 feet deep and still had the diving board! The man asked me all kinds of questions about the house and the re-model my parents did a year before we moved out. It was so nice to take a trip down memory lane. So nice to talk with this man and see a place that had SO SO many happy memories. So nice to go back and visit a home that is being taken care of and loved. And so like the chorus in the song says
"If I could just come in I swear I'll leave, won't take nothin but a memory, from the house that...built me." And that's just what I did.
I hear this song by Miranda Lambert all the time and I am constantly reminded of the home that built me. I dream about my childhood house constantly. There are so many happy memories of swimming in the back yard, playing hide and seek with street friends out front, learning how to ride a bike for the first time, and all the other wonderfully childish things of yesteryear. My old house, back in Westminister California is a place where time was much easier, friendlier, and happier for a lot of reasons. When we left that house, I was ONE angry kiddo. I blamed my parents (being almost a teenage girl I now realize that was the typical thing to do) and I made the choice (now I realize I CHOSE it) to be very unhappy and miserable. There where instances and situations that didn't help my adjusting to my new home (like being bullied CONSTANTLY from 7-10th grade....threats of having my head bashed in by girls in the locker room, NASTY rumors and comments by the girls at school and other organized establishments, let's just say I am grateful daily that I didn't go to high school during Facebook)
Our new home had a lovely back yard, but the pool where we spent literally EVERY day of summer with diving board plus slide was just not there. The front yard where we let our puppies romp and play was some 35 miles away. And so my dreams of my old home were always in my mind. I would go back from time to time and drive by it over the years, but that was it, until yesterday.
Yesterday we drove out to Long Beach to pick up something from Craigs List. On the way back, the boys and I were headed home on the 405 when the Miranda Lambert song started playing in my head. So we exited Beach Blvd and headed over to my old home. There were a couple of cars in the drive way, and the place looked so much the same. The thought crossed through my mind "I have two little children, surely if I knock on the door I won't seem like some crazy person if I bring the kids along!" So I carried Connor and walked Joel up to the door, we knocked, and a very nice man answered. I explained who I was and he asked "is your last name Bouslog?" I told him it WAS...he told me they still get mail for us...some 20 years later we are still getting mail there! LOL He invited the boys and me in and we were able to walk around. It was so wonderful to get to show Joel where I used to eat breakfast in the morning before school, the room where we had our very first Apple computer set up to play games on a green and white monitor. The man led us out back and I got to show Joel my old playhouse (now turned into a storage shed) where my friends and I would have tea parties and sing and dance. And then the pool...oh how glorious it was to see my old pool! And all of the dreams I have had about that pool really were correct! It is one of THE biggest backyard pools I have ever seen. I wondered in years past if it was just because I was a kid that the pool had seemed to big, but no it is about 7-8 feet deep and still had the diving board! The man asked me all kinds of questions about the house and the re-model my parents did a year before we moved out. It was so nice to take a trip down memory lane. So nice to talk with this man and see a place that had SO SO many happy memories. So nice to go back and visit a home that is being taken care of and loved. And so like the chorus in the song says
"If I could just come in I swear I'll leave, won't take nothin but a memory, from the house that...built me." And that's just what I did.
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