My family is the third to live in the house we call home. August will mark 6 years. In this short span we’ve experienced much. Most of this much is ordinary and to be expected. The same things those that lived here before likely did. Brush your teeth. Annoy your sister. Let the dog out. Grill. Shovel. Battle the chipmunks. Let the dog back in. Wave to neighbors. Birthdays. Arguments. Sit on the screen porch. Walk upstairs. Weed the patio. Laundry. Dinners. Entertain friends. Get the mail.
We settled right in and it’s like we’ve always lived here. But we haven’t always lived here. This used to be somebody else’s and somebody else’s before that. And someday it will be someone else’s after us. They’ll probably change many of the things that we have and will have changed in our tenure. They’ll brush their teeth. And annoy their sister. They’ll have wins and worries and unexpected goods and bads. And we’ll be somewhere else, possibly getting the mail, or not, depending on how far in the future we’re talking.
They might have some of their best moments in this center entrance colonial with way too much pachysandra in the front yard. They might also have some of their worst. But they’ll live here. Like we do. Like the families who lived here before us. They’ll inhabit the halls and they’ll lay down at night not thinking about any of us, likely. But maybe curiosity will strike, and they’ll wonder who we were and how we lived in their home when once it was ours.
