Day 8-A Moment...

I have thought about this one and have thought of several "moments" that I could blog about.  I have even thought about changing it to my "journey." After much thought, the moment that I have chosen is the moment that I moved out of my childhood home. 

Without going into a lot of detail....my mom sold HER home...OUR home, our childhood home in 2010.  I went home to help her and my brothers clear out the house that we affectionately called home since 1986.  Clearing out the house was bitter sweet.  It was almost like a cleansing process.  We had been holding onto so much stuff for so many years and this forced us all to let it go.  In the garage, I found one big box wth my name on it that contained so many memories:

• Porcelin dolls and masks that I used to collect
• Love letters from old crushes and boyfriends
• Yearbooks from middle and high school
• Hundreds of letters from my best friends
• College acceptance letters
• SAT scores
• Endless amounts of pictures
• My old cheerleading uniforms (4 years worth)
• My cheerleading megaphone
• Certificates and awards
• Old report cards and progress reports
• My old pagers!!!!
• Ballet slippers from when I was little
• Old essays and work from high school
• A book that I wrote in Ms. Farish's English class
• My old retainers

The list goes on and on.  I really thought that I would be alright with packing up what I could and bringing it back home with me but not so much.  The last time that I walked out of that house and closed the door, I broke down in tears.  Why?  I have moved on with my life and established my home here.  It was the permanent ending to having a place to call "home."  The ending to have a common place to meet my side of the family on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. It put closure on having the same phone number to call home for over 25 years. 

Closing that door and looking around brought back so many memories:

• Getting our pool built
• Practicing for cheerleading tryouts
• My car accident in my driveway
• Having our friends over ALL of the time
• Holidays, holidays, and more holidays
• Practicing for the Ms. Ebony Eyes Pageant that my mom made my costume for and coreographed my talent routine for!  I got first runner up.
• Learning to drive
• Experiencing earthquakes
• Elementary school, middle school and high school
• Riding my pink beach cruiser down the street
• Walking around the neighborhood to see all of our friends
• Joe that lived across the street and ALL of his cats
• Playing basketball in our driveway
• Swimming for hours on end
• All of the pets that we had

That was "our" house and I have so many memories there.  Driving away from it for the last time was bitter sweet.  Time to move on and let it go...the memories and moments will live on, but I hate that it's not "home" any more!