Going back "home" again? (father, husband, siblings, member)

[ItsRick24]

If this is not the correct thread, moderators please move, but I want to post...

Not very long ago, I visited my old neighborhood where I grew up. I just happened to run into someone who remembered me; with a little talking, I was able to get in to and see our old apartment. We lived there from 1965 (I was 2 then) until 1980 (I was 17). My parents raised 3 kids there (I'm the baby). Many, many memories - good and bad. I'm 52 now and reminiscent of the old days. Leaving our old place, the tears flowed freely as I look back and say, "I had a good childhood!"

Have you ever gotten the opportunity to revisit your old home? Let's hear your story.

[germaine2626]

I grew up in the house where my father was born and died (almost 80 years later). After my father passed away we (siblings) kept the house for another 12 years. Unfortunately, being empty for that long led to deterioration, combined with changing building codes and we were forced to tear it down. Once the house was gone it never really seemed like "home" again (even though we still own the property- a farm that has been in our family since 1916).

[Mattie]

My husband and I bought our first house a couple of miles away from the house I grew up in. When we were looking for something larger to hold our growing family, my parent's old house came on the market. I went to the open house, and took lots of pictures to share with my siblings. We didn't buy the house, we wanted more property in addition to more room.

It was fun seeing what the latest owners had done, although it definitely hadn't been redecorated to my taste ( lots of country fabrics). My mother was so upset to hear they had taken out the beautiful custom built-ins in the living room, they were one of her favorite things.

[animalcrazy]

I still own the house I grew up in. It's never been my favorite place. My childhood was a nightmare and having to rehab the house over and over again was not fun but also part of the healing process. I remember pizza parties with 6 or 7 kids all sitting on the floor with a table made from an old door. It turned into a happy place with the neighborhood shorties and their pets coming over for frequent visits while we rehabbed. The house has been a cash cow which has been a really good part of the healing process. We are using money from that rental to live on now as I quit my job in July. Yep I love it now.

[KathrynAragon]

I've gone back to several homes - and in fact, I have a recurring dream of going back to many different homes from my life, looking for friends that I've lost over time. The baggage from a military dependent's lifestyle, I guess!

The family homestead where my father grew up and where I spent many vacations over the years is now owned by my dad. I will inherit it one day. It's a grand old house, built in the late 1800s and retaining many original features - but it's stuck out in the middle of nowhere in a state where no one wants to live. It's a dilemma.

I spent three wonderful years as a young mother, living in military quarters in Germany - they had formerly been German officers' quarters during WW2. About five years after we moved, I went back to Germany for vacation, and asked the current family living there if I could see the apartment. It was very bittersweet to see it, since my life had become much more complicated and sad in many ways, since those happy days spent there when my kids were small and life seemed idyllic. The wallpaper border that I had hung up was still there - for some reason that got to me, because I remembered making curtains that matched that border - that room had marvelous windows that I spent many hours looking out of, looking over the monastery ruins across the street, the view of the mountains in the distance. I remembered holding my toddler son and dancing to a Dan Fogelberg song about rain, as the rain poured down outside those big windows one afternoon right before we moved...and I remember realizing that my life was about to take a difficult turn, and it did.

About three years ago, my husband and I went back that German town - and our housing was being torn down and the military installation was closed. Interestingly enough, that didn't make me sad. It was the closing of a chapter, not only in my own life, but in post WW2 Europe. I sat on the rooftop patio of our ancient hotel that evening, looking out over the town that I had loved, and I drank a glass of wine as I thought, contentedly, "I will probably never see this again - and that's OK. There are other places I want to see."

A few years ago, my daughter and her family moved to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. I had lived there as a child. It was fun to go back there to Norfolk and Newport News, and find the two homes I'd lived in, the schools I had gone to (still there), and to drive through the quiet neighborhood that nestles against the James River. The houses still looked good, still looked the same. That was surprising.