Closing Childhood Chapters

Circa 1994

This summer I returned home to a home that I have known for many years. It doesn’t exist in one of my favorite places in the world, but it is where I grew up in northern Virginia. My father has lived for 30 years in Herndon, Virginia. 30 YEARS! All in the same big house. I have gone back to visit him many times over the years, and town (more like mini suburb cities now) has changed a lot…

But the home, the space in that house - holds so many memories, and so when my father told me that this was the year that he was selling the house and moving across the country, and would I mind supporting him and helping him make the drive & the transition, it felt like an important thing to say yes to.

So I returned to northern Virginia to help my dad and I had a lot of emotions come as I walked through that house and through the creek and pathways that are behind the house, through the neighborhood, places that have always been accessible to me. Places that I could always go back and visit. But it will be much harder or impossible to do now.

And the inside of the house - the old music room where I learned to play piano, the basement where I played Nintendo 64, laser tag, and “the floor is lava,” where I did crafting with my mom. And the upstairs office where I made all my Napster playlists and carefully crafted mixed CDs to blast out the windows of my red Ford Ranger pickup truck, when I first got my license to drive. So many memories…

It’s important, I know, to take time with the emotions that come with the memories, the saying of goodbye. Of course I can always visit those memories, but the space is no longer there.

Final moments at the house before we left for the last time.

And so we drove away from the house that final day. We packed it up and left it to a new family that will make new memories. I called my sister, and we shared more memories together over the phone.

At the same time, my mom had been cleaning out old boxes. Just a few days before helping my dad move, I was at her house, sorting through high school documents, photos, projects and deciding what to keep and what to let go. Then I spent two days in Harrisonburg, where I went to college, biking around campus with some of the friends I shared that time with.

On the James Madison University campus!
Harrisonburg, Virginia

So there’s been a journey of nostalgia this beginning of the summer. It really makes you reflect on life and how I’ve come to be here now and the interesting pathways that I’ve chosen to take.

It’s a special opportunity to get to say those goodbyes, and I know that too, because sometimes you don’t know when an ending is an ending. And you look back and say “Oh I never did really have closure on that,” and I’m grateful I have closure on that house and that space in my life. And to have had the opportunity to see my dad into his next chapter, landing him in Boise and feeling the excitement that he has for being with his brother and the rest of our family.

But it can be a lot to hold.
Stirring up the past. Reflecting on your own journey through younger days.

Having just turned 40, those memories seem especially far away and long ago. They are a part of me, but life is so very different from what it was then.

I had another reflection arise after traveling across the country, but for that one… you’ll have to meet me over on my tik tok channel. @faroutofthebox

Growing up is wild. And sometimes, it takes packing up an old house to see just how far you've come. Thanks for being here with me in it.