neverland

when we moved in, January 2019

It’s our last normal week in this house and inevitably I’m starting to feel sentimental. Like a fool I caress the textured plaster walls and thank the lilacs in the yard for their burgeoning buds, as if this house, those elaborate root systems have a soul. It seems a lifetime ago since we landed here. I have such tenderness for the person I was when we arrived. She was reeling from a sudden move and utterly unsure of everything. I won’t be sad to leave this town—there’s not much for me here aside from the mishmash of memories we’ve made, memories we likely would’ve made regardless of where we lived. For some reason—a premonition, maybe?—we made little effort to put down roots here, so the ease of leaving is no real surprise. The things I’m mourning now are really quite inconsequential: the balcony off our bedroom on summer mornings; the beautiful oak herringbone floors upstairs; the little nest we’ve made for ourselves. That’s about it, so I know we’ve made the right decision, and anyway, we’re only moving an hour away. Still, I can’t help feeling sad while the evidence of our lives is slowly erased from this house. Were we really here? Will some essence of ourselves linger in these walls? 

I refuse to believe that a house is just a house. While it might not be palpable to the new owner, within these rooms we toiled and grew into sharper versions of ourselves. Certainly some essence of our lives will remain here even if we don’t. In some way this house will always be ours, will merge into the rich inner world with us everywhere we go—that neverland shaped by all our experiences and places lived and people known, where things physically gone become immortal. In my head I can always return to my parents’ house and have a chat with my sixteen year old self, or bicycle down the bumpy path to my aunt’s ranch to check in with eleven-year-old me. And when I need to come back to this house, it will be there, waiting.