The House That Built Me

"You leave home, you move on, and you do the best you can
I got lost in this whole world, and forgot who I am
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it's like I'm someone else, I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could walk around, I swear I'll leave
Won't take nothin but a memory, from the house that built me"

 Every time I hear the song, "The House That Built Me," by Miranda Lambert I think of the home I grew up in from when I was age 5 to 18, and here & there in the years to follow. 

I'm not gonna lie, growing up I hated that house, for various, superficial, unappreciative reasons.  It wasn't on the "good, cool" side of town, it was old (built in the early 1900s), and it seemed to be in constant construction. 

My mom is coming for a visit and there are some things in her shed I want her to bring (rewind: she sold the house & most of it's contents in 2008 or 2009 and moved in, to a close by town, with her boyfriend (now fiance).  Since she moved into his house, she bought a storage shed to keep her most cherished belongings).  I was looking for one of those requested items in some pictures of the house I took during a visit from HI (I'm so glad I took pictures because now it's all we have other than memories).  I became very nostalgic.  And of course that song, that has been playing non stop on the radio for the past year, popped into my head.  There were some horrible memories in that house (thanks to my previous step dad), but there have also been good, fond memories created by my mom.

As I was looking through the few pictures I have, I began seeing the house in a whole new way.  I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm now an adult, having gone through a lot of homes in the home buying process, my current interest in home design/architecture blogs, and being a first time home owner.  First of all, wow, they just don't make homes like that any more!  It's only taken me 22 years to see your vision Mom!  Compared to the new houses on the market (that are reasonably priced & within a "normal" budget), they just don't put in a lot of the features and characteristics that were put into homes 100 years ago.  Second of all, that "constant construction" I lived in was really hard work and creativeness.  I fully appreciate what they did to the house.  I can kind of remember what it looked like before the remodeling...carpeted floors, boring dingy-white walls, white exterior, and my super ugly bedroom of brown and yellow painted walls.  They gutted pretty much the whole house (minus the kitchen. That was still undone when it sold) of plaster and put in drywall; new electrical features; pulled up carpet downstairs and refinished the hard wood floors; tore off the white wood slats outside and put up siding as well as painting exterior trim; put in a brick patio, sidewalks, drive way, and addition to the garage; landscaped, etc.  It makes me tired just thinking about it!  No wonder we were so poor, ha. 

The foyer/front room

 Living Room

My bedroom from 7th grade on

My mom's room (the room that use to be my brown & yellow room)

That house could have stayed the way it was.  But my mom wanted to make it a home.  And I must say, she did a great job, the best she knew how!  I look back and I'm so grateful that I had a home to grow up in, a place of dwelling and a place of hardships.  I feel horrible for taking it for granted all those years growing up and for being so thoughtless.  That house, as well as the people within & around it, truly did build me into the person I am today.