The Roanoker - September / October 2018 - 63

The simple truth that my three kids keep getting
older-they're now nearly 17, 14 and 11-has altered
our home so much I sometimes don't recognize it.
Just like I sometimes can't recognize them.
I am continually amazed at how incremental
changes every day equal a total transformation after
only a few years.
The hard part is that I wasn't looking for change.
While I am beginning to adjust to the pleasures of
having an extra driver, a daughter that likes to bake,
people who can (though they often don't) empty a
dishwasher, fold a load of laundry, sweep the floor,
I'd be pretty happy swimming through an ocean of
stickers, cupcake sprinkles and Barbie shoes once again.
But it's not up to me. I can choose the furniture, the
curtains, the color of our walls. I do not get to pick the
stuff that belongs to the people that live within them.
Who knew how much that stuff determined my decor?
Our home is made of brick and plaster. Somehow,
I thought that even while the bone and flesh inside
was metamorphosing, the structure would stay still.
I thought my two-story Colonial would keep my
favorite memories of my younger children like those
canvas cubes corralled their playthings.
It turns out that our homes are more mirror than frame.
By virtue of living in place, we transform it.
So I accept the things I cannot change. And I
steel myself for the even bigger shifts to come. That
playroom that has already taken on a foosball table, and

DRE A M

a giant reading chair feels a bit passé as two-thirds of
my posse heads to high school. The bouncy balls and
doll beds will give way to what? A sectional couch, a
couple ottomans, a big screen?
My home, as sturdy as it is, has no more power than
I do to stop this march of time.
There are still a few places that preserve my
reminiscences-the pencil-marked growth chart on
the door frame, the gouges in the hardwoods made
by a careless body careening around with a destructive
rolling stool. Every time I open my closet, I remember
my son at four playing hide-and-seek in our nearlyempty new house. Those recollections are built into
the structure's very frame. Despite how fast my kids
grow and go, those memories won't.
But so many of the moments we have lived here
together are just gone. Funny phrases, silly inside jokes,
tearful times. They, like the outgrown clothes, the
forgotten toys, the books that tell too simple stories
now, have been replaced by today's words and worries.
Our dining room table no longer holds paper plates
and yarn and brads because it is busy boasting resumes
and applications, science fair research, laptops ordering
from Amazon.
At least there are the photos. They take me back in a
blink. To a time when, even though the walls were the
same forest green they are now and the cherry wood
buffet stood in that exact spot it still sits, the people
at the table were someone elses altogether. I

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018

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The Roanoker - September / October 2018

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