Galloping Hill Road

Around the holidays, my good friend, Jen, was home from Colorado.  Her parents still live in the area where we grew up and I always take the girls over when she is home so our kids can play together and we can all can hang out.  Even though we (Greg, kids and I) now live in the same county where I grew up, I do not often go any where near my old house.  I'm not sure why?  I guess because I really don't have any reason to do so.  Anyway, there is a Miranda Lambert song that I happen to love and it always makes me think about my old house.  So when the girls and I left Jen's parents home last month, I decided to take them by my old house. 

This is the house that I came home to from the hospital when I was born.  This is where I learned to ride a bike, play piano, play basketball, swim, etc.  This is where I left from to walk to the bus stop every day for 14 years (we had pre K).  This is where my first boyfriend picked me up for my first date and my first prom.  This is where I lived when I graduated from high school.  This is where home was when I graduated from college.  My room was the window upstairs on the right.  When my older brothers moved out, I got the room on the left for a couple years.  This was a great home.  We were on an acre of land, there was a farm in the distant back of the house, we had a pool, a giant garden and really nice grass. My best friends lived on the same street and we spent our summers catching lightening bugs and digging up worms and our winters sledding down the giant hill behind the McGuire's house.

My parents sold this house just a few months before I met Greg.  So when he met my parents, they were living in our beach house while they worked on building their new house in Bethany Beach, DE.  I definitely remember feeling weird when I brought him "home" to my parents.  I sort of wish he could have seen us all in this home for at least a little while.  I have such great childhood memories and for some reason, I still dream about this house a lot.  I have the most vivid dreams where I can just feel the kitchen floor on my bare feet.  I can still hear the sounds of closet doors opening and my mom singing in the kitchen.  Everything about this house is just so deeply carved in my memory and even if I don't think I am thinking about it, I guess I am because I dream about it constantly.

I never really felt too much sadness when they left because they at least moved to our other hometown---Bethany, where we spent our summers since I was in the 7th grade.  So, I do feel like their new home is my home, too, but nothing replace this home.  This is the home where my Mom was the happiest ever.  It's the home where my Dad was active and busy.  I guess I just feel like the parents that shaped me and raised me are still in that home and not so much in the Bethany house.  My children's grandparents live in Bethany Beach.  My parents lived here, on Galloping Hill Road. 

Anyway, here are the song lyrics to add to the melodrama of my post:

"The House That Built Me"

I know they say you cant go home again.
I just had to come back one last time.
Ma'am I know you don't know me from Adam.
But these handprints on the front steps are mine.
And up those stairs, in that little back bedroom
is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar.
And I bet you didn't know under that live oak
my favorite dog is buried in the yard.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear I'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.

Mama cut out pictures of houses for years.
From 'Better Homes and Garden' magazines.
Plans were drawn, concrete poured,
and nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama's dream.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could just come in I swear I'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.

You leave home, you move on and you do the best you can.
I got lost in this whole world and forgot who I am.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could walk around I swear I'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.