The House

While my mother moved around quite a bit while I was growing up, my father was very stationary. After their divorce, he moved in with his mother and took over the house when she died. All through my rather unstable childhood that house was literally a port in a storm.

It was small, with two bedrooms. After my grandmother died, Dad converted her bedroom into a room for my sister. I took over the unfinished basement. I loved it. Cinder block walls and a big furnace that had originally burned coal and at some point had been converted to gas. It was swathed in asbestos and no doubt I'll develop lung cancer. I don't care. That cave was my safe haven for at least ten of the eighteen years before I made my escape to college.

When my father died, I was only twenty-two. I'd just graduated college and moved to Chicago. There was no way that I could take on a mortgage and try to be an actor. I chose being an actor and after nearly a year of trying to hold on to the house, had to let it go. I won't go into all of the gory details now, but suffice it to say that my sister and I were taken advantage of and walked away with nothing.

In the time since we left that house, there have been major renovations. Fences were pulled out, trees were cut down. It was painted brown. Five years ago I drove past it for the first time in years and barely recognized it. I was happy that it was being cared for and didn't give it a second thought.

Until this week when my mother sent me a telephone listing.

My cousin bought the house.

I felt like I'd been harpooned. For years I've felt guilty for losing the house. Now, it is not only back in the family, but it was bought by a cousin who is from the branch of the family that virtually disowned my father when he married my mother. It was a rift that was never healed.

I spent about an hour feeling bad. Then I realized that house is in that small town. While I might have made more money in the sale, if I'd tried to hold on to that house, I'd have had to move back to that same small town to do it.

If I'd done that, I'd be dead.

I made this realization while I biked along Lake Michigan to my job and made plans for my exotic photo shoots. I decided that I don't think I'd trade my life today for all the little houses in that little town. My cousin is welcome to it.