2205

Change is a funny thing. It’s exciting, yet intimidating. It can be quick, or it can be a process. It can
be expected, or it can be an uncomfortable surprise. Change can be helpful and refreshing, but it
can also leave us wounded. The thing about change is that it’s rarely easy. Finding new ways to
adapt requires effort and cooperation, which at times, can leave a person confused, frustrated, or
even drained. Especially when it seems as though all they are surrounded with is change. 
Coming back to school this semester, i found myself drowning in deep change, struggling to stay afloat, desperately trying to grasp onto any surface of comfortability. I feel heavy and hopeless. I want to say that all these changes are positive. My father is finally receiving the recognition he deserves in his career, my youngest brother is surrounded by overwhelmingly fantastic opportunities, i will be traveling internationally in a few months all on my own, I am in a serious and very real relationship, and I am finally on the pursuit for a degree that i feel confident in achieving. But everything comes with difficulties and some changes are harder than others. 
Being away from my father is almost unbearable. He has been my biggest fan and strongest supporter over the years, it’s hard to imagine that he is no longer a 10 minute drive away. Through my mother’s passing, my illness, the assault, the jake incident--everything--he has been my protector, my coach, and my motivation. He has always made me feel safe. After his departure, i feel scared, even in my familiar home, Lawrence, Kansas. Probably because without him and the rest of my family, the dear old LFK is not much of a home anymore. 
I found myself crying today. Once i began, i couldn’t stop. Tears after tears, moans after moans, I’m sure Trevor could hear the agony in my cries as we drove by 2205 ****** Dr. And all it took was a glimpse. One single glimpse of that beautiful home. Although completely illogical, i hoped to see a light in the house, a television on, a garage door cracked, anything signifying my people’s presence. But seeing the house without my family, all dark and empty, was difficult. It seemed as though it resembled a kind of reflection of myself. And for that reason, i broke down. 

As a young girl, I must’ve been immune to the fear of serious change, for moving away never crossed my mind. As far as i was concerned, our big blue house (which is now an odd tan color to increase buyer’s interest) would always be my shelter. Now that I am experiencing a deviation from my prolonged expectation, I’m finding it rather hard to cope. It sounds stupid, in fact it probably is. I wish i could help it.

As I sat in the driveway and watched the snow collect on the roof of my blue house I imagined the very first time I had seen it, in that very spot, sitting in the backseat of my mother’s minivan. I remember I was eager to pick out my room and explore the--what seemed like a mansion at the time--new home. My brother’s and I, coming from a little ranch style home in Oklahoma, had never lived in a house with a flight of stairs, let alone two. We chased each other up and down each step on all fours, dodging the movers and the large cardboard boxes they hauled through the house. Our house. I thought about the early mornings in the kitchen, watching my mother fry morning eggs and cut our servings of fruit into brightly colored shapes. I thought about the “Jacuzzi nights” my brothers and I would beg for, squirming into our bathing suits and hopping into my parent’s oversized bathtub. When I turned to look at the snow-covered ground beside my car, I could suddenly feel freshly cut, summer green grass and the soft scratches it left on my palms as i cartwheeled back and forth across the front yard.

            I remembered the secret games my brother’s and I shared, running through our backyard, weaving between trees and chasing our dogs. I remembered the smiles and winks my mother gave us in every room and the kisses and clingy hugs she gave my father in the kitchen when he arrived from work. He was always happy to hold his wife in his arms again. I also remembered the hot tears that ran down my face when we lost her, and how cold the house was the following few months but how warm my brothers’ arms were and how encouraging my father’s forehead kisses remained.

I remembered the wedding in the living room and the wedding cake in the dining room as we celebrated a new addition to our damaged, yet happy home. I remember watching Disney movies with my new sister in the living room and watching my stepmother steam rice on our stove. I remembered each dinner at the bar, each holiday meal in the dining room, each angsty, teen vs parent fight in the hallway followed by a heartfelt apology at the foot of my father’s bed. I remembered each wrestling match with my brothers in the basement and could feel each burn the carpet so generously left on my elbows throughout the years during these play fights. I longed for my warm bed and my room, the one that looked like a princess tower, and wished to see my bookshelves, pictures, and journals lining the light blue walls just once more. I remembered lying there with Trevor the summer before I officially moved out, knowing that in that moment, in that room, I had fallen, without question, in love with him.

When I returned to reality, all i could do was cry. I cried for myself and i cried for my mother. I cried for my mother’s home. You see, my mother and my father showered us with so much love, it overflowed each bedroom and every floor. It was not possible for the movers to pack it all. It was a load much to large, and dense. I can only imagine how much was left behind, which is what pains me the most when i realize i can no longer enter my childhood home to gather the remains. I can only hope that whoever purchases that beautiful house finds it. I hope they stumble innocently across the left-over love that my family and my mother had left behind, tucked in the corners of each room, smeared across the hallway walls, draping limply in each doorway. I hope our left-over love comforts them and inspires them to add their own. I hope that one day that house is full of love again, bursting at the windows, doors, and seams as it was once was. To the new inhabitants of 2205 ****** Dr, enjoy every second in your new, beautiful BLUE home.