Saying Goodbye to my Childhood Home

My parents sold my childhood home and moved to North Carolina. Granted, they've been talking about moving to the mid-south or Carolinas for about 10 years. And for the past year they've been building a house in Charlotte to move into. So I've had time to process this, but still, they've gone and sold my childhood home. The bastards.

This is the only home I've ever known, having lived there from the age of 1 to 18, and then coming home to visit for the next 17 years.  This is the place where all my childhood memories are most associated. Where countless hours were spent, tears shed, grasshoppers captured and sleepovers held. Every Christmas morning for 25 years was at that house. And now some stranger lives in it.

It's now a house I can only drive by and view from the outside. Never again will I enter her warm bosom of nostalgia and be reminded of the joy and agony that accompanies childhood. Frankly, I'm not sure I ever will drive by. My parents moving likely means I will have no reason to visit my hometown. Why would I go, and if I did, I'd have no place to stay. My youth is now a fleeting memory, and I, a middle aged man.

My parents however seem to have no qualms about departing the house they have inhabited for the past 35 years. Perhaps they've spent the past 10 years processing the impending change. They bemoan the loss of good friends, but friends are always transitory. How can they not grieve a house they have nurtured, and the memories contained within?

As a child I was always in awe of my grandfathers house. It was built immediately after the civil war. A stately home built for a county judge with 10 foot ceilings, a large porch and a sun-room. My grandfather lived there for 50 years, and my uncle has lived there for 25 more. But someday that house, a house that is the centerpiece of my father's family, will pass on to a new family. I've thought about this a lot over the past 20 years, and for some reason it always saddens me. Even though I was just a visitor, it's the place where most of the memories of my grandparents are tied to.

I wish I knew why I (and I suppose most people) tie so many memories to the physical houses. I certainly still hold an emotional attachment to our house in San Diego where we lived, even if only for 7 years. Perhaps it's because we put so much work into fixing up that house, perhaps because that's a house where our family sprouted, perhaps it's the pride of the first house I owned and cared for. I really don't know, but the song The Old Apartment by BNL always hits me in the feels.

I'm excited for my parents new chapter. I always knew my childhood home wouldn't be there for me to visit forever. I think knowing that it's gone is just the close of a chapter in my own life that I wasn't quite prepared to have end.