Jut

I've grown up in the same neighborhood for almost eighteen years. We moved here the summer before Austin turned two and, until my dad retires and trades the house for an RV and travels the country with my mom and his dogs, I think this is where I'll be able to return for barbecues and Christmas. It's right between the two busy main streets of our town - the cute downtown shopping district and the car dealership drag - but it doesn't feel like we live "in the city." We're right in front of city-owned woods with a farmer and his field beyond that, so at least on our side of the street there's no chance of us ever having backyard neighbors.

Neighbors come and go, as people often do, but for the most part the subdivision has stayed the same. It's one of those places that's great for young families - lots of space on a quiet street - and even in this age of video games and "indoor entertainment," kids still play outside here and run wild in their front yards until the sun goes down. There were several summers that my siblings and I would stay out until dark, going back and forth on our bikes between the Barnetts' and the Wuennemanns' and the Noctins'. We were still at the age of "pretending" then. The woods were a fort. The sprinkler was a time machine. The street hockey sticks were rifles as we shot each other from the backs of sawhorses.

It's so strange to think that soon I won't live here anymore. Every night I crawl into my little twin bed in my little green room and think, "You'll be a guest room again in less than a year." Of course I'll be over for the pool and to cook burgers with my family but it won't be "home" anymore. When I leave work at night to go "home" it won't be to the house where our first dog is buried under the front tree, where my dad and I rebuilt the mailbox after our drunk neighbor dragged it halfway down the street under her car. It will always be my home in that I'll always be welcome. But as with so many things, it will be a "was," not an "is."

"This was where I lived."