ILYPANTS.NET
Notes To My Kids: Little Stories About Grown Up Kids
While it has been a long time since we lived on Monterrey Drive in east Fort Worth that house and that neighborhood still has an important place in my recollections to this day. To me it will always be your childhood home even though you both left there when you were little for points east with your mom. For whatever reason that little house still makes many big memories come alive in my mind.
I could probably write a book all to itself about that place. All of the things I remember from when you around me every day and how that was in my life come back into my conscious memory from time to time. Like when I drive on I-30 back home from Dallas I see the signs of the streets on the bridges over the highway that lead back to our old neck of the woods. While I can’t see the house from that vantage point I can see the times spent there in my thoughts.
Little things and big things will fill my mind about that house. From what type of trees it had to the shape of the rooms inside of it. Plus the many events that took place there over the years like your birthdays, the times spent in the back yard on the swing set, and of course other times like when the grand parents came over or the holidays.
Me and your mom thought the house looked something out of the old Leave It To Beaver TV show, a program that of course showed a rather idealized version of family life. It may have been an unrealistic view of life but it was one that many people identify with in our culture to this day. It was a view of what a family should be like and how it should live.
And maybe that is what I am thinking as well when I see that always white painted two story house with the dormers and its trees inside of my head. Perhaps I too want to paint an idyllic picture of our past life on top of the obvious reality of life’s ups and downs which is the real canvass we see ourselves on.
Regardless of why I feel that way or why I still hold that old house now long gone so dear even now, I know that it is good to have such a place in your life. A place that can be an anchor in life’s always present storms. A place that as we get old we can think back upon and remember times that were good and memorable to us. A place we can still call our home even though we are far from its once safe and comfortable shores.