The house that built me

If you have ever heard the Miranda Lambert song, “The house that built me,” you may know where I am coming from.

Last week my mom and dad sold the house they have lived in for 23 years.

It’s an awesome house. They had a builder custom design it. It is on 10 acres. It is in the country, but only 1.8 miles from the highway.

When I was in middle school they put an above ground pool in. We also had a hot tub, and I remember many summers my friends from high school would come over, and we would run back and forth from the pool to the hot tub.

You could sit outside at night and watch the stars. Noises from trains were nonexistent—in fact the first time I realized how loud trains were, was when I spent my first night at Michigan State University.

It is the house that served us through the good times and the bad;
It’s where my husband gave me one of my coolest Christmas presents ever—my wedding ring—almost 10 years ago.

It was the house where I recovered from not one, but two, shoulder surgeries.

It’s the place I remember my dad grilling even in the dead of winter—he’d shovel just enough space on the deck when it was really snowy.

And, yes, our old dog Coco is buried somewhere on those 10 acres.

I knew the house would sell, I just didn’t think it would go so quickly.

Luckily, this summer when I was there I took a few pictures.

As I am writing this, I can’t help but shed a few tears. It is the one place I still think of as home.

8464 Carole Lane, I will miss you.

But, I know that it is just a house and the people that live in the house are much more important than any memory. Those same people (My mom and dad) will be coming to live in Texas, hopefully by the start of the summer.

Selling that house is a blessing. I just wish I could have been there to help my parents clean out 23 years of memories…and junk.