Anonymous Member

Ever go home, again?

I have been thinking about this some time, primarily after I go back to my home town and do the typical drive through my old neighborhood and then by my old house. The house I grew up in, was brought home from the hospital in etc. It always makes me sad because it changes so much, sometimes for the better and then to the opposite end of the spectrum.

I've always wanted to go knock on the door and ask to see the house, explaining that some of the time it withstood was from myself and my family. I wanted to ask them why they took out our favorite trees in the front yard. Of course they didn't know we climbed those trees as children, but still. We put a lot of work into the house before moving, lots of love before leaving.

I hope maybe someday to be brave enough to walk up to the front door and knock. Maybe even get to see some of the inside again. Get to see how small it really was compared to the way it seemed in my memories.

I do have to recall the house my parents reside in now was probably someones childhood home at one point. If someone were to come up to me randomly and ask to see the house I'm not sure what I'd say. I suppose it would depend on the person and how judgemental I was feeling. It's

Has anyone done this? Gone home again?

GreyWolf

The home in which I grew up remained in the family until about 6 years ago. My uncle was living there until he fell on financial hard times and had to sell it. The house was in severe disrepair, and when I went over to help him straighten some things out, I was depressed at the state of the house. Not that it was ever terribly well appointed at the best of times... we weren't poor, but certainly weren't a long ways above it, lol. The house is old (100+ years), small, and we were very crowded there, but we didn't know that. I have good memories of growing up there, and it kind of hurt to see it go.

The house I live in now is much nicer, and it's the only house my kids have ever known. To me, it's just a house... I could leave it quite easily. But I often wonder how my kids would feel about that. To them, it's their HOME. Would they be as upset if I sold this place as I was to see MY HOME get sold? Probably. Home is, I think, really a concept for the young. Adults tend to have a place to live.

__________________
The secret to great marksmanship is deciding what the target was AFTER you've shot.

ring

Logan: Anonymous has the right to post anonymously,
without your blessings.

I grew up in a town of 1200.
Things haven't changed much since 1963
The medium sized well-built brick house I grew up in
looks pretty much the same on the outside, as it did then.

A few years a go, I did stop to talk to the people who live there.
They were pleased to have me come in and look around.

@anonymous. I'm not clear as to why your judgemental-ness would be a factor,
if someone came to your parents house. Sorta rough neighborhood perhaps?

That could be something to consider I spose.

LoganSnake

Oh dear, it seems that I have overstepped my bounds. Please, accept the humblest of my apologies.

Would be kinda hard to have a sense of community if everybody started posting regular threads as Anonymous.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

No, I haven't been home in over 11 years. Makes it hard to casually stroll back into the neighborhood when it's 5,270 miles away. No real desire to go back either.

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

ShaniFaye

I've wanted to, but I knew I would be miserable seeing it all different, I still live in the same area and I know the horrible things they have done to the yard and the exterior, so no..I have no desire to see it now. I prefer to remember it the way it was

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

dlish

My parents still live in the same house i was brought to the day i was born 32 years ago.

i still look at the house everytime i go back home and wonder how much i'd miss it. i walk the backyard and look down the 'cricket pitch' we made with the our foot holes still obvious. the red and green plum trees where we spent a large amount of time every summer are gone because of the drainage problem, but in my mind they still exist because they were always there as a kid. The carport with the chin up bar where i'd see my dad do chin ups every day is long gone because of the extension 20 years ago, but again, when i think of home, i see it and see my father doing his chin ups every afternoon.

i'm kind of glad that much hasnt changed back home and that i still have access to the childhood memories that present themselves so vividly everytime i go back.

i will be sad to see the house go one day, but im hoping that it'd be many many decades after i'm gone.

__________________
An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy

wooÐs

I've definitely thought about this. There would be 2 homes to visit - one in Miami and one fairly close to where I am now in Marietta. I'm sure the one in Miami has changed drastically. I lived there until the 5th grade when the family moved here to GA. Now the house I lived in here in GA is chocked-full of bad memories. Some good ones though. I did a drive by maybe 12 years ago. I don't think another would hurt. Doubt I'd knock and ask to come in though - not sure.

snowy

I grew up on an island in the Puget Sound that few people know of, it seems. I moved away when I was 13 for suburbia in Oregon. I've gone back a few times since, as we still have friends who live where I grew up, and sometimes we drive out to the island and look at our old house. I took my SO out there a couple years ago, so he could see the places I'd talked about, but one thing I realized on that trip was that the place in my head, the place I remember, no longer exists. Places aren't artifacts, and a place that truly lives never stays the same. When I moved there as a small child, it was a small, close-knit community based on farming, and now it is a bedroom community of Seattle.

I've never asked to see inside. I don't want to. I'm perfectly happy with my memories, especially since the last time I drove by, they had taken my mother's apple treees out. It isn't my house anymore, and I'd rather leave my memories unblemished by modern knowledge.

I still dream about that house nearly every night.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

PonyPotato

A woman in her 80s came to my house maybe 5-6 years ago and asked if she could see the inside, since she had once lived here. She gave us a lot of insight regarding the changes that had been made to the house since she had lived here - a bedroom was converted to another bathroom, a screened-in porch was insulated and turned into a real room, some doors were closed up, and so on. It was interesting to hear her perspective, and she was glad we were taking decent care of the place.

As for the house I lived in until I was 9-10 years old.. I had the opportunity to go back and see it a handful of years ago, since my dad had rented it out instead of selling right away. It looked a lot more dilapidated without the rose-colored glasses of my childhood to see through, but our height markings (along with initials and years) were still on the door frame of the furnace room. I still wish my dad would have replaced the door frame so we'd have that piece of wood.. even if it's just to have his handwriting somewhere.

Now, the house has been foreclosed on and has been in severe disrepair (on the outside, at least) for a while.. I turned around in the driveway a few weeks ago when I took the wrong road off of the new roundabout. We actually considered re-buying it since we're looking to move.. but it would just be too much work and a little too weird to be living there again after 14 years away.

__________________
"Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark."
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Daniel_

My parents bought their first house (of their own) when I was six months old, and my mother still lives there.

It really upset me (more than I was expecting) when I heard last year that she is thinking of selling it. I can't afford to buy it from her, but always had a fond idea that I'd be able to raise my family there - it's ideal in many ways as a family home - quiet road, with a good sized garden, and near to local amenities.

On an aside, my house was treated very ill by the people I bought it from (which is why it was so cheap), and we've spent years fixing it up. A few years ago (before we'd fixed it up) I met the penultimate owner before me, and when I told her some of the things that had been done since she sold it, she actually cried.

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

Frankie Zee

Trying to go back can be tough. I've moved around a lot so I could either say home is where I graduated high school or home is where I was born. I've tried to go back to both. After years, most of the friends I had in high school moved, got married, or both. My parents also moved, so even though I still have some siblings in the general vicinity, going back there is not the same.

Most recently, I tried to come back to the area I was born. Where most of my extended family lives. I really don't know anyone here and I ended up an hour and a half away from my nearest relative anyway. I frequently drive through that town and it looks the same on the surface, but it's really not. Outside of one of my favorite bars, I really have no desire to go there anymore.

I have to say that going back doesn't really do much for the memories of your childhood home. At least not for me, it hasn't. I found myself wondering why I missed it in the first place. IMO, if you've been gone for an extended period of time, it's better to restrict going back to short visits.

Charlatan

I have driven through and visited via Google Street view but to be honest, it's not that important to me. I am not all that tied up with bricks and mortar.


I do have a story about a friend though...

When I was a kid, I had a friend that used to talk about the house he used to live in. He talked about how happy he was there until his parents divorced. I didn't think too much about it at the time. A few years later, he was a teenager now, and he went to visit the house. He asked the couple who lived there if he could see his old bedroom. Upon leaving he asked them to call him if they ever thought of selling as he would be interested in buying the house. It was all very pleasant. He walked out to the front lawn, pulled a P38 out of his bag and shot himself in the head.

A sad story to be sure but it's what popped into my head as soon as I read the OP.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Wes Mantooth

Its weird how we have such a romanticized view of the past isn't it? When I was young I couldn't wait to get out of my parents house and my backwards little town. I hated that place with a passion...I may have even vowed not to return when I left.

Anyway in the years after I left home my parents sold the old house and moved on as well. During that time I found myself thinking about "home" more and more often. Daydreaming turned into searching for photos on the web...until I discovered google maps and started street viewing the fuck out of my old home town (and of course the street view ended just before my old street...why not). I realized in that time that I really did care about the old home place and even missed it, that's teenage angst for you I guess.

When my father retired he was thrown a party in our old home town and asked me if would attend. I packed up and flew back to Maine, sort of excited...maybe a little bit nervous about seeing everything for the first time in years, I wondered if some of my old burn out friends still lived there. When I arrived I was shocked, nothing looked the same. It was so tiny, buildings had been torn down and half the population had moved away leaving street after street a vacant mess of overgrown yards and run down homes. When I finally got across town and saw the old house I was heartbroken. The people that bought it had run it into the ground, the paint was peeling so badly it was almost gone, the brick chimney had fallen over, the driveway was cracked and full of weeds. It dawned on me at that moment that this wasn't home anymore and I had no more right to it. I certainly couldn't go and punch the new owners in the face all I could do was drive away.

While driving away I realised that it didn't matter and its slow decay meant nothing to me. The house, the town, the beauty, wonder and awe that it held for me while growing up would always remain alive in my mind (as romanticized as it was). The aftermath was never mine to begin with nor apart of my memory of it. It was somebody else's world, a place where they would grow their own memories.

I don't know maybe the old saying is correct after all. You really can't go home again.

__________________

Vigilante

I live 3 miles from my old house now. The same people live there now as they did then. I moved in with them when I was 4, 30 years ago.

I wouldn't care if it burned to the ground.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

little_tippler

Some sad stories in this thread.

The home I was brought up in is currently where my mother still lives.

I like going back there but now I feel that home is my current house.

A few years ago my parents renovated the house so that the interior I recall from my childhood is mostly gone.

Also, when I moved out my mother turned my old bedroom into a study.

I suppose some things are still 'home' to me there, but in many ways I don't feel as comfortable there as I once did.

I also have some very bad memories in that house too.

I think possibly one day I will move back, because the house is actually in my name now.

I am still fond of the house because it's got a good area and location. It's a 6th floor apartment with a large balcony and a sea view, and decent neighbours, for the time being.

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

f6twister

I've always been curious but I've found that I don't want to see the changes. My mom moved out after my dad died because she didn't want to handle the yard work (especially being a corner lot). I helped her get the house in order and was the last of our family to be in the house before the new owners moved in. I took my time during my last visit to walk around the house. I remembered how it looked when we moved in and all of the changes we made over the years. I recalled the good and bad times and visited those places where our family left evidence that we once lived there.

My life in that house ended during my final visit and it is now a part of someone elses life and memories. I would rather keep the memories of that house the way it was when I left than see what it has become.

__________________
A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day. Calvin

dlish

not sure if that was an intended pun, but i'd have thought this was hilarious if it wasnt for the fact that it was a true story

__________________
An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy

bagatelle

My parents still live in there, and I lived there since I was born, until I moved away together with hubby-to-be.

The house was very different at first. My grandparents lived downstairs, our family upstairs very tight. When grandma died, the house then was owned by my parents and was renovated, we needed to build extra rooms for grandpa, me and my brothers, as we were growing up, so it changed a lot - almost 30 years ago, when I was a teenager. Now when there are only my parents living, it's too big for them. There's a lot of unnecessary stuff they wouldn't need and lots of work in the yard.

Last year we renovated the kitchen for them, but there would be a lot more to do. I was never really pleased how the house and yard changed, the renovations never were completely finished either, so it was like living in something half done, although mom always kept it tidy. I still look at the house like I was planning redoing the renovation.

Charlatan

I'm not going to lie to you... I wish I'd been intentional in that pun.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

lostgirl

All the time, and I still kind of think of it as home. am really sad they removed the three redwoods that used to be one the corner, one of which I would climb, and spend hours just thinking.

I could never move back, I go crazy in that town, even when I go to visit my parents for a few days.

__________________
We're about to go through the crucible, but we'll come out the other side.
We always arise from our own ashes. Everything returns later in its changed form. - Children of Dune

Illini

Still in the same small town, i want to leave asap. Time to move on.

Cernunnos

The visualization of home is accompanied by an assortment of comforting memories from that distant period in my life. I was only 5 at the time, but my parents were together, and despite the occasional whistling of their boiling kettles, it was a peaceful time. I had no responsibilities, the gravity of my existence hadn't yet caught up with me, and everything I knew was contained within a single neighborhood and school. I was shielded from the disfigured, volatile, and utterly merciless world at large. No decision on my part was required beyond the color of balloon I preferred for birthday parties. I had Thomas the Tank Engine and dinosaur toys, and I built huts in the shaded sand beneath a slide at the playground. I was thoroughly amused by poop jokes, and the greatest uncertainty in life was how a certain girl would respond to my love letter hidden in her desk.