My life is in boxes. My past is in cardboard sheeting, labelled. The
future is yet to be unwrapped, somewhere else, somewhere new. I'm on the
move to a new house and it's frightening, exciting, stressful and
confusing. The old house is clean now, cleaner than ever it was when I
lived there, ready for the new family to move in, to unwrap their future,
unpack their belongings in the place that holds my past. The old house
is cold and it's empty, the echos of old Christmas parties in the living
room, the dogs' footsteps running up the stairs, people coming, people
going. The curtains have all gone, and the blinds been taken down, bare
lightbulbs dangle sorrowfully from each ceiling without their floral
skirts around them. The garden needs tending, but the new folks will do
that. They'll make the lawn green again, make the house alive again.
It's been a happy 2 years, overall, in the old house. Nothing and
everything happened there. I'm not sad to be leaving, just wondering.
Wondering why the bricks, the flooring, the doors and the windows keep me
here unti the very last moment that I have to move out. Wondering why,
if it's only a building, do I want to cry as I take a last look at the
carpet, it's only a blue one, nothing special. And as I look out of the
windows, I say goodbye to the view. I'll see it again, it's only fields
and trees. So why am I choked and can't speak? As I drive away in the
van with my past stacked neatly in the back, the front door waves goodbye at
me, the flowers in my garden tilt their heads and say thankyou.
And so, to the new house we go. To our future, where everything will
happen, yet nothing will change. The new house is gleaming, freshly
built, virgin rooms. I'll fill it with flowers and memories in no time
at all, just watch. The dogs are out and they're sniffing, wondering
where they are, why they've come out here and when they're going home.
When they see us unloading furniture they recognise they're confused. I'm
confused. I turn the wrong way to enter the kitchen. I expect there to
be one step more than there actually is. I look for the blue carpet, but
it's suddenly green. Yet, the trees and the fields are still there. My
view hasn't deserted me and something, at least, is the same. And so
here I am, I've made the move to a new house and it's stressful,
confusing, but exciting and real.
Glenda Young is also the writer of the
weekly Coronation
Street Update on the net, and can be contacted at:
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