See, I just want everything back. That old orange flowered sofa? I want that back. The coffee table that looked like tree bark. The wagon wheel things out in the yard. THE YARD. The fruit trees. The rosebushes. The piano. The stereo with the giant speakers. All the ridiculous heavy wooden furniture that wasn't actually ridiculous at all because it was alive, it had a soul, not like today's disposable crap. I don't care how light it is, I WANT REAL FURNITURE. I want all my books back. And my cats. And my different colored socks. I want a big kitchen. I don't want an econo-life. I want things to smell like something, and feel like something. I want to goddamn FEEL again.
I miss my mom cooking and my dad reading the paper every morning. People laugh at tradition. WHY? It's what all our FREAKING HAPPY MEMORIES are made of!! And we've laughed it all away, like it's funny, like we can do better than those fools, but really, who wouldn't want to return there, to their safe place? Why have we bombed our own safe houses? Who are the fools now?
If there's one lyric I not only wish I'd written but feel like I could have written it's, "If I had a billion dollars, I'd buy back my old room." This is from an obscure 80s song they played late at night on MTV when I felt all rebellious! staying up past my bedtime. (I sincerely hope it was on a school night too.) What's funny is, I was a kid when that song came out and the line didn't mean anything to me, but it stuck with me all these years. And now it's gospel.
Life has pretty successfully kicked my ass. And all I want is to go back to my couch fort. I could live there, there was always room for snacks. And a cat.
Showing posts with label the house that built me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the house that built me. Show all posts
Sunday, August 21, 2011
If I had a billion dollars, I'd buy back my old room.
This pretty much sums up my life lately. I feel so lost, and want to return to what's familiar. But sadly that was lost a long time ago. The town I grew up in is still pretty much the same, the house I grew up in is still there, but someone else lives in it. They have for a long time. Parents never consult the kids when they sell off their childhoods. Now I want it back. I feel like everything that's mine is still there, and everything that came after is fake. This probably comes from not having kids of my own yet and wanting them so badly. Their childhood will replace my lost one, and enrich who I am now to the point that maybe I feel real again. And I won't be so quick to sell theirs to the highest bidder, just in case they want to come back and visit. Reclaim that little piece of who they are whenever they start feeling lost in the foreign, adult world.
I grew up on a quiet, modest suburban street. Kids rode their bikes, dads watered the lawn, moms baked cookies in the kitchen. All the yards had fruit trees. You could walk almost anywhere in the town from my house, to the various parks and swimming pools, to the stores downtown, to the library, to school, to your friends' houses and back home again. It never felt anything but safe doing that, and no it wasn't the 1950s. Your house was... your house, part of who you were, not some transitive residence. You knew every nook and cranny. It was home.
I used to think this Everywhere USA of my childhood was cheesy, I took it for granted the way that only someone who "has" can. When everything is familiar, you crave unfamiliar. You feel like something must be wrong if you feel so content. Surely, there must be more to life than this!
And probably for some people, there is more. For me, that was bliss, but the kind you don't know you've got til it's gone. Like the Big Yellow Taxi. Paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. When I hear that song, I automatically think that childhood is the paradise, and the parking lot everything that comes after. It makes me sad. But then I think, you can plant a garden, you can recreate paradise. That's the answer. What you have lost, give to your children. Make sure they never lose it. Childhood isn't something to be abandoned but something to be built on. "Home" is important because you are important. I've lived in enough disposable apartments to know, after a while you start feeling disposable yourself.
I just wanna go home.
This pretty much sums up my life lately. I feel so lost, and want to return to what's familiar. But sadly that was lost a long time ago. The town I grew up in is still pretty much the same, the house I grew up in is still there, but someone else lives in it. They have for a long time. Parents never consult the kids when they sell off their childhoods. Now I want it back. I feel like everything that's mine is still there, and everything that came after is fake. This probably comes from not having kids of my own yet and wanting them so badly. Their childhood will replace my lost one, and enrich who I am now to the point that maybe I feel real again. And I won't be so quick to sell theirs to the highest bidder, just in case they want to come back and visit. Reclaim that little piece of who they are whenever they start feeling lost in the foreign, adult world.
I grew up on a quiet, modest suburban street. Kids rode their bikes, dads watered the lawn, moms baked cookies in the kitchen. All the yards had fruit trees. You could walk almost anywhere in the town from my house, to the various parks and swimming pools, to the stores downtown, to the library, to school, to your friends' houses and back home again. It never felt anything but safe doing that, and no it wasn't the 1950s. Your house was... your house, part of who you were, not some transitive residence. You knew every nook and cranny. It was home.
I used to think this Everywhere USA of my childhood was cheesy, I took it for granted the way that only someone who "has" can. When everything is familiar, you crave unfamiliar. You feel like something must be wrong if you feel so content. Surely, there must be more to life than this!
And probably for some people, there is more. For me, that was bliss, but the kind you don't know you've got til it's gone. Like the Big Yellow Taxi. Paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. When I hear that song, I automatically think that childhood is the paradise, and the parking lot everything that comes after. It makes me sad. But then I think, you can plant a garden, you can recreate paradise. That's the answer. What you have lost, give to your children. Make sure they never lose it. Childhood isn't something to be abandoned but something to be built on. "Home" is important because you are important. I've lived in enough disposable apartments to know, after a while you start feeling disposable yourself.
I just wanna go home.
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