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I have vague memories of moving into that house. The only thing I remember before then is that I was happy. We used to live in a pretty little farmhouse by the river, surrounded by hills. And family members lived nearby, who we would eat dinner with every Sunday.
My best memory is my uncle letting me ride one of his horses on my fourth birthday.
At that age, I didn’t understand the concept of moving. I had this idea that the moving crew we hired was actually going to remove the house we wanted and replace our old one. I imagined it looking the same, only painted purple.
My parents laughed when they heard that and told me that the house wasn’t moving. We were leaving this place for good and were going to live somewhere else now. I wasn’t ready for that.
Years after the fact, my parents told my sister Cassidy and me that on the first day we moved in to the new house, we were both in tears begging Mom and Dad to take us back to the farmhouse.
They told us we were frightened and that we kept them up for hours with our crying all through the night.
I don’t actually remember that. However, I see old fragments of memories shifting around: driving down that street for the first time, getting my first glimpse of the house crawling up into view, feeling a sinking discomfort that soon replaced the joy I had back on the farm.
