By Barbara Andersen · 20 February 2018
We have all heard the phrase, “You can’t go home again.” Nowhere is that more true than when we are talking about visiting a specific house where we used to live. If you visit a childhood home you will be amazed by how small the rooms are. The backyard where you played wild and imaginative games will be the size of a postage stamp. Who wants to see that the favorite tree you left in the front yard is now gone.
My husband and I have owned 7 homes in the Phoenix area. For the most part, I have avoided going back to see them. But there is one time that I should have taken my own advice. In the mid 1970s we owned a house in what is now the Roosevelt Historic District. It was a duplex when we lived there, but had been constructed as a single family home in 1917. We purchased the home with friends, each family lived in their own side of the duplex. We fixed up our homes with paint and wallpaper, stripped woodwork, and set up nurseries. Our first children were born there and it was the site of many happy memories. We sold it in 1977.
Fast forward thirty years. It is a Sunday afternoon and the Roosevelt District is having it’s yearly tour. I am with my daughter who was born in the historic duplex, and we are on Lynwood St. Some of the houses on the street are open for touring but our old house is looking forlorn and neglected. I see a woman coming down the front steps and go up to ask her if the house is possible for sale now. She answers, “Oh, no. Homeless people are living in this house now.” Sure enough, when we peer into the windows we see total destruction. All the interiors walls have been torn down. The floors are ripped up and littered with trash. There are broken windows. A few dirty, grease stained appliances have been left behind. It was a nightmare in the light of day!
So take my advice and don’t look back. When you have determined it is time to move, for whatever reason, move forward. The people who made your house a home will go with you, family and friends who will love you no matter where you live. It is the memories and relationships that happened in the home that made it a treasured place. Those things are still alive in your memory, ready to happen again in your new house.
First published in The Bodeen Team’s quarterly client newsletter, Annual Review 2017.