Usually, I’m not the type of person to get all emotional over small things, however, things that bring up childhood memories will always get me. Such as, a onesie that one of the boys used to wear, an old toy that they used to play with, or in this case, one of my old houses.
I’ve lived in several houses, but one of the houses that I lived in will always be the most memorable. We lived in a small house in Marietta, on Oswalt road for about 4-5 years. What brought this memory back to me was a dream that I had last week. That one little memory brought about a million with it.
My first little brother was an infant when we moved in there and that’s where I really started learning about child care. That’s where I learned how much I loved kids. My parents added onto the house and it was much bigger. We expanded our house and expanded the family, also; I was blessed with another baby brother. That house is where I lived when my parents got divorced, its where I lived when my mom was deployed to Afghanistan, its where I lived when my closest friend died in a car wreck, and its where I lived when my father started dating again. (Which, any child of divorce will understand, is a difficult thing to get used to.) All within those short years, I was given a lot to deal with before we moved out of that house and into my fathers girlfriends house. Then, my mother finally came back from Afghanistan and I immediately moved back in with her, full time. We moved 2 hours away to the Fort Sill area and stayed there a good long while until we eventually came back to Lone Grove. Through all that time that I was away from my home town, I swore up and down that I hated that house (the Oswalt house, as we call it) because I hated each and every memory that came to me when I saw it.
Looking back now, I can see how childish I was being, because it was really my fault for only seeing the hard times when I remembered that house. So, I up and decided to go visit the house one evening. I drove all the way out there and ended up chickening out. I went to see a friend, we talked about it, then I told myself the next day, I’d do it. It was time to bury some demons, and I did. the new owner let me look at the house. I remembered the boys as babies, I remembered playing in the backyard with my big brother, I remembered birthday parties and Christmas and all the things that ever made me smile in that house. Its good to face your past sometimes, and I’m glad that I did.
