Can't Sleep

Ten minutes ago my eyelids were so heavy I couldn't have propped them up with a two-by-four, but the instant my head hit the pillow, it finally happened: my freakout over the house sale.

Tomorrow morning the Wood Family abdicates its 41-year hold on 2166 Electra Ave.

So now it's near midnight and I can't sleep because my brain won't stop saying really doofy things like "Is there any way possible to give something as big as a house a hug?"

Yep, that doofy.

So I thought maybe I'd go ahead and add my own memories of the Grand Old House to those floating in the family blogs. I'm hoping I'll find some sort of catharsis here and finally be able to sleep. Because if Momma don't sleep, ain't NOBODY happy.

So here, in random order and as they pop into my head, are my memories about The House. I remember...

Playing with Chris in the backyard in the summer, till we were itchy from the grass and freezing from the hose and it was time to come in and take a bath; playing my violin in the empty dining room when it was being remodeled and was all echo-y; watching Mom and Grampa Wilkin playing music in the living room; desperately wishing for years I could work up the guts to walk up that wooden handrail-dealie in the stairway and finally doing it and feeling like I had climbed Mt Everest; putting up wallpaper with Debby and also with Chris (being a parent now, I marvel at the freedom we were given with our rooms - thanks, folks!); watching TV with Greg in his room shortly after his mission; planting all those rose bushes in the front yard with Dad (they used to line the entire walkway, wish I knew how to dig one of those up to transplant to my house); Cameron's friend Jim finding a ridiculously huge toad in the "tunnel" that lets water from the schoolyard into the gutter and helping me work up the courage to hold the thing (it was fun); "Turtle Wrestling"; The Two-Yard Dash we were forced to do if we were on the wrong side of the TV and wanted to leave the living room before MASH was over; the best party ever thrown - the Sightreading Party; the Christmas I got my first bike of my own (purple), my little tin play refrigerator in the backyard; the brick steps and planters that used to be back there; the grape vines; the original intent of what is now a giant gaping grassy ditch in the backyard (Cam & Dad had some rather ambitious ideas about a fish pond once upon a time); the FantasyLand that was the master bedroom closet; the Northridge Quake, of course; climbing on the roof, I forget why - probably just because I wanted to see if I could; going up to the computer room to tell Mom I was engaged (and getting a less-than-enthusiastic "So, you're going through with it, eh?" or something close to that in response, I might add); all the great ambient music at Christmastime; the year I was almost convinced that Santa was really real (and fairly rude) because he had left muddy boot tracks (which I got to clean up); the horror that was trying to gently wake up Mom while simultaneously NOT waking up Dad if I needed something in the wee sma's; all the snoring grandparents way back when Thanksgiving gatherings included Grandma and Grampa Jepson; reading Shakespeare out of that giant red book...

This could go on forever. I think the main loss is not the house itself, but the sense of a central gathering place. Yep, that's hit the nail pretty much on the head for me. That will take the most adjustment.Weird.

Just weird.

Gonna try sleeping again.

I hope that somehow the faith, love, and laughter that filled that place for 41 years survives the remodel that's already begun and blesses the next family to live there. If they can feel one-hundredth part of the good we experienced there, how richly blessed they will be.

Sheez, I'm sappy when I'm tired! G'night!