When I was a kid, we moved a lot. There were two houses, in Belmont and then Cambridge, surrounded by houses with only boys, and I pushed my sleeves up and for all intents and purposes, became one of them. And then we made our big move, to Vermont. I really have lost track of the exact amount, but there were about five or six houses in between those and the house we built, or as the five year old I babysit would call it, "our Forever house."
Thanks, Liesl. I think that's a pretty accurate term. There's a lot wrong with this house, including my hotter than hell room and our perpetually broken roof and sliding bathroom door. There's a constant stream of people in and out, especially in the summer when a bunch of boys pile into our basement to work for my dad every weekday from 8-4ish. There's no noise protection, there's always old men playing electric guitars and singing badly into microphones. The dogs are constantly barking and the phone is ringing because the UPS guy is refusing to drive up the driveway. There are fireworks and guns and the cars of a million people who came from who knows where.
And then there's us. The five of us, technically the nine of us.
I remember building the house, especially when it was just a skeleton house. We ran through it and brushed our fingers along the wood, marking out the areas where our kitchen and bedrooms would be, where we would eat breakfast and dinner, watch TV. It wasn't a real concept, each having our own bedrooms and a basement we could play ping pong on a handmade and slightly uneven table. And then when they started putting plywood on, we'd try and crawl out onto it until my mom and whoever was around would yell at us. Gabe and I climbed up to my room and threw wood blocks down and then I fell all the ten feet down to the ground.
The first night we were in our house, we were too scared to sleep in our own beds so we piled into our mama and papa's bed and read, The Night Before Christmas. I don't think I slept at all that night. But life went on, as it always has.
My parent's dream was always to create a place like this, a home for everyone who wants a place at our dinner table. My friends are always begging to be at my house for meals and nights and some of them are even in our Christmas card. Most parents build their family around a single concept, have it all about their children, have it all about themselves or their relationship or whatever. But ours is about us. It's about us being together and hating and tolerating each other and to me, family means my five people, Micah and Elsa and Leo and Otto.
I know I'm lucky. I really know it and sometimes I forget it. I have to leave in a month and while I've never been more excited for anything, I don't want to leave my people. I use the term "my people" because they are and I've never been as prouder to be a part of anything as I am to be a part of them. And there are so many bad days, when the laundry isn't done and we are all mad at each other, when the dishes are being fought over and the animals haven't been fed, the house smells of cat pee and the TV is broken, yet again. But there are days when I come home and all I want to do is eat dinner and laugh and forget that the rest of the world exists.
So, let's eat dinner at my house.
We'll eat and fight and clean up. We can grab drinks and sit on our (probably wet) porch furniture and watch the sun set over the valley we live in, on the wood we stained and watched being constructed. And we'll never say it, but I know, we all know. Life is beautiful.
"Time's are changing, I know, but who am I,
If I'm the person you become
If I'm still growing up?"
ALSO:
totally forgot in my crazy busy whirlwind of a summer, but Misadventures of a Teenage Renegade is officially three years old! just a lil tidbit of information, now carry on.
