Home Sweet Home

What is it about being in the house I grew up in that brings memories flooding back to me? Sometimes the tide is so strong that it knocks me over, filling my nose and mouth, threatening for a moment to drown me in a memory. Thoughts come back to me that I haven’t visited in decades. Pain that I hadn’t remembered for years suddenly fills my chest and I am briefly breathless. Or a happy memory fills me with joy and once again I have the spring in my step from age seven. What is this strange phenomenon? It’s almost like déjà vu.

I guess it wouldn’t surprise me so much if I had come home after years of absence, but I return to my childhood dwelling every few months, so it still surprises me when it happens. Do I hold on to the past too much? Is it just that my memories are still so vivid? I know, it’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just kind of freaks me out sometimes.

I often think of that terrific movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and wish I too could erase certain memories. The only problem is I’m sure I would be somehow lacking, somehow hungry without them, even the most painful.

Why do I remember so much? Why haven’t the pictures of my past faded more? Is there something more I should’ve realized? I know I still have much to learn in this life, I just thought the lessons would be found in my future, not in days gone by...