9:30 a.m. - 2003-09-18
Leaving Childhood Behind
I've been kind of distracted lately. It's a variety of things keeping me from my journal, rather than any one good reason. I'm spending a lot less time on the computer than I used to, mostly because I've hardly been home at all in the evenings. I spend my days on the computer at work, but the incredible racket coming from the construction next door is not exactly inspiring for great writing. Besides, I have been busy with other things, like work, and hunting for apartments. No, I'm not moving out until next year. But there's no harm in getting an idea of what's out there. Diana and I are planning to move in together next summer. Not only have we decided to get an apartment, but we're also going to get...a kitty!
I am obscenely excited about both of these things. We chat idly about all the things we want to get, all the things we'll do, where we want to live. We spend half an hour debating cat names. (We want to get a little grey girl kitty. If you have name suggestions, please email them to me or leave a comment in my guestbook!) We plan, and daydream, and get insanely excited. At the rate time is going, it won't be very long until we get to move in together.
Mind you, I have to move before then anyway. My parents have bought a new house. It's not very far from where we are now - less than ten minutes by car. It's closer to Jamie, and it's in a nice neighbourhood. It's a nice house and I like it a lot. But lying in bed last night, looking at the familiar walls of my room, I was filled with a pang of heartache over leaving the house that's been mine for almost 15 years. I know the nooks and crannies so well. I know which floorboards to step over so as not to wake up my parents when I sneak in late. I can stumble to the bathroom with my eyes closed in the middle of the night and not trip over anything. I know where my cat will be hiding when I can't find her. I know where to go when I want peace and quiet.
It's a house filled with memories, every room, every space on the wall reminding me of something, every mark on the carpet a reminder. On the wall under the curtain, you can just see where I carved my name into the wall the first month we lived there. It's been painted over since then, as has my little growth chart on the wall. But I can still look at the wall and see myself grow up. I look at the fireplace, and I see so many Christmases spent in this house, each one perfectly familiar in its routine. The routine will have to change now, new traditions made, new ideas brought up to find the Christmas spirit in our new house. We'll have to find a new spot for the advent calendar, the same one we've had for longer than either Bonkles or I have been alive. We'll have to figure out somewhere else to put the Christmas tree, find some other way of hanging our stockings from the stone mantle, learn how to fit everything for Christmas dinner into our new kitchen.
It won't be my home for very long, this new house. Before long, I'll have a new home, with Diana and our kitten and possibly a newt. I'll always be welcome at this new house, always be familiar with it, always be comfortable there. But that house will never be a part of me the way this one is. It will never be home in the way that this one is. Leaving this house behind means leaving my childhood behind. I knew it had to be done eventually. I just wish I could have held on a little longer.
