The house I grew up in has so many memories within it and around the yard. I stand on the deck and look over to the pond, I swear I can still see that day my father threw an ice skating party for my sister and me. Our little girl friends ice skating around and smiling, laughter fills the air. This memory is one of my favorites.

The house I grew up in comes with some really bad memories, ones that make my heart break when I think about them. From parents fighting to the final divorce, sure I could focus on some really bad memories that come right to my mind clear as day, as if they happened yesterday. I choose not to remember the bad memories, I choose to remember the good ones.

The house I grew up in is still owned by my mother and now my children get to experience the place I called home so many years ago while I grew up into the adult I am today. I spent many years in this home and after looking at an old VHS tape from the last year that my parents were married, I see that I have more memories here than I thought.

The house I grew up in is a place where a mom and a dad started their lives together with two beautiful young daughters. There was family game night one Christmas in 1991 and although the memory fails me, the VHS tape shows a mom, a dad and two girls playing Connect Four together one Christmas night. The VHS tapes shows a mom smiling, two daughters enjoying her company and a father capturing this memory on a recording device for us to look back to for years to come.

The house I grew up in is a place I want to have my children grow up in. I am thankful that, at least for now, my children get to be here, on the land and in the home I was raised. I am thankful that I have so many good memories and this house hasn’t gone to a stranger as of yet. I am thankful that I have good memories to share with my children.

The house I grew up in is a place that makes me feel at home and for that feeling alone, I would not give this house up for anything, ever, unless of course I had no choice. I would like to think that one day I could call this house I grew up in mine, but no one knows quite yet what the future holds for this house I grew up in.