They say: "Home is where the heart is". Sometimes I think it's nice to remember where your heart has been.
Yesterday I went to a friend's house for a late brunch. It was a lovely afternoon of wine, lasagna and cannoli, while myself and four girlfriends caught up on everything from backaches to boys to babies. My friend lives on the east side of town and while driving home I couldn't help but slow down as I passed my old apartment on Mayfield Road. I looked to see if anyone was out on the balcony or if the balcony was decorated or if there was an "I miss you, Jenny" sign hanging from the railing. It looked pretty quiet there though.
It got me to thinking about past living spaces - past homes - and how I can't help but be reminiscent when I'm near them.
Take this apartment on Mayfield, where I spent about four years of my life and met some of my best friends. It was there that I realized it was possible to miss central air as I spent several summers melting into my sofa. I cried in that apartment, I laughed in that apartment, I continued my non-cooking streak in that apartment. The back fire escape stairs are where I spent several weeks being terrorized by a mysterious raccoon who would climb up and down them while leaving trails of garbage behind him, until the day I actually saw him teetering on the tiny rung of a ladder to the roof and I nearly fell down the stairs as I tried to escape the situation. Sure, I've moved out of and moved on from that apartment, but my heart will always remember how it felt to live there.
Whenever I'm back at Bowling Green State University I of course feel a little reminiscent when I pass my old dorms and apartments. The memories of late nights, parties, new friends, walking back and forth to classes, and getting in trouble for being too loud while playing "would you rather" seem like both forever ago and just yesterday.
Then there is the first home that I lived in while growing up (well, officially it was my second home, but we moved in there before I was one year old, so I'll call it the first home I remember). It was in a development in Strongsville, Ohio, tucked back on a cul-de-sac. It was where I spent nearly 18 years of my life growing up with my two older sisters and my parents. I learned to walk in that house, I learned to ride my bike in front of that house. I decorated Christmas cookies and Easter eggs in that kitchen. I played Barbies and had countless sleepovers while staying up too late watching scary movies in that basement. We have family pictures standing in front of the fireplace in that living room and home movies on the back deck of everything from graduation days, to proms, to when my sisters and I just wanted to test out the new video camera after school. When we moved out of that house the summer after my first year in college I went into my bedroom closet and drew a small heart with a little note as high as I could in one of the corners, with the hope that the new owners would never find it and there'd forever be a mark of me in that house. Since we moved, I still have reasons to drive through Strongsville and when I do I try to allow some extra time to drive by that old house. It's now been painted blue (used to be tan) and the wooden tree fences that used to line the edge of the driveway have been ripped up (which our friends hated when they first got their licenses and had to carefully back out of the driveway) and I know that most of the neighbors I grew up with have since left as well. But even with those changes it still feels the same when I'm in front of it. It still feels like the place that my parents, sisters and I grew into our family and it's still the place where I started on the path to become who I am today. I imagine my little drawing still intact in the closet as if saying "Jenny's heart was here".
As I type this I am sitting on the balcony of my current apartment - my current home. Years from now I'm sure I'll pass by here and remember the stories of what happened in my life while I lived here. And now I'll remember this moment of sitting on my balcony remembering all my past homes - all the places my heart has been.
