Friday, July 18, 2008

You can't go home again

My mother has lived in the same house for 52 years, and it is the house I lived in for the first 19 years of my life. I noticed, as have most of you, that when visiting the house you grew up in, it's different. There were 4 of us kids living in this house with my parents, and at times it seemed rather crowded. Now when I visit my mother, there seems to be vast empty spaces, lots of unused room. I have friends who say the opposite, everything seems smaller.Going home means different things to different people, but I think we all agree you can't go home again with the same meaning it had as a child.

1 comment:

Diane Perin said...

I love this piece, Karen -- is this a sense of your family home?

My childhood home has seemed really small to me when I've been by. My folks no longer live there. And what seems weird to me is that now the neighborhood -- before the classic 60's suburb with clean streets, manicured lawns -- has streets just LINED with cars so the streets seem narrow and totally jammed. It's very weird.