Foreclosure: A Writing

In 2013, while I was recovering from knee surgery, my family and I received a notice in the mail; our house was being foreclosed. This is about loss and the move from my childhood home.

I’m tired. I can feel my body beg for sleep, my mind cry for the comfort of a pillow…and every time I lay down I can’t sleep. I start seeing images of the old house. All of it…empty. Void. I try to push those away, and remember it with everything there. There was furniture that my grandmother left us when she passed. Decorations. Plain white walls that remind me that we could have done more. Piles of junk that I should have gotten rid of so long ago, but were too sentimental to give up. Even the mess that I made sometimes has become a comfort in my mind, like an alternate world and a trip to the past. It’s a past I don’t want to leave. A past I would give anything to live one more minute in. I try to keep these images alive and vibrant, but then they fade. Once again, I see the grey, transparent emptiness of a house that was once filled with energy. Someone has died, and I try to remember them alive…but I just keep seeing them dead. Lying there. Empty of a soul. The house, a friend, a family member, a loved one is gone. It’s soul has moved on. Should I?

I keep looking at the backyard. The new backyard. It’s unfamiliar, like a different world. I look at the street, and think, ‘THIS ISN’T MY NEIGHBORHOOD!’ I look at the barren trees, stripped of bark. ‘THESE AREN’T MY TREES!’ I try to decorate the house, and make it as aesthetically pleasing as I can. I want it to glow with the warmth of the old home. I want the fireplace to emanate the wavelengths of memories long gone in a warm, tranquil, reassuring light. I want my room to represent “ME”. I want to calm my nerves and yet still this house should be full of the life that I so miss. I put a Buddha statue in my room with Buddhist prayer beads, and dream catchers around the room, but this isn’t my house! What’s the point? Everything breaks. The water heater always needs to be reset. The heat didn’t work last week downstairs, and the garage door won’t open or close now, unless we do it manually.

THIS ISN’T MY HOUSE!

So I start to cry, and make myself sick from upset. Jaw quivering and tears flowing, I often lay in bed when trying to sleep, and wonder if I should just relive it. Look around in my mind and accept it for what it is…

Or should I run away? Should I take my mind somewhere else, push everything back, and forget that all my things are gone? The memories have been washed away in a flood of my tears. What more can be left to see? I can see the bones of the house now, the walls devoid of pictures, and the images of how it once was are chipping like old paintings. I want to take my shovel and bury everything…

No. I should close the door. I should kiss the house goodbye. I should tell it what it means to me…and thank it for my childhood. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to venture from the crib. I need to crawl to the stairs and take my first steps down. I need to throw away my dependence, and grow into an adult…and I need to lock the door, and pass on the key.

Author's Note

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