Wandering Wednesday #12 – Whittier, CA

Hm, it never crossed my mind that someone else will sleep in my bedroom when I move. When I moved out of my parents’ house, I thought I’d feel weird about it but it really doesn’t bother me that my old rooms are now an office and a guest bedroom. Maybe it will feel strange when they’re to old to live there and sell it. I don’t know.

You comment hit a chord with me – for I thought that very thing, someone else sleeping in my room, a few years ago. Dad had passed and my mom decided to downsize and to sell the family home. She was excited about her move forward and was feeling some freedom not being tied to the house and all its contents. Me – I was in mourning. This was the house I grew up in. This was where my childhood friends played, and all our Christmases were celebrated, the bonfires, the pet cemetary across the street, the yard where I sold lemonade…all the memories echoed in and around the house. And as my sisters and I cleared out 50 years of stuff – it evoked such nostalgia that I would cry. (Part of it was around the loss of my dad – but still – how could mere stuff have such an effect?!) When the house sold – I was devestated – I couldn’t stand the idea of someone else living in the house. I didn’t say these thoughts outloud – after all, I was a grown adult – but the thought of someone else sleeping in my room bugged me. We did meet the family that bought the house. They had young boys. I console myself that this will be their growing up home and that they will make new memories.