Good morning everyone! I worked a 3 day conference last week which included Saturday so I will be working from home today. I love being in this space. I am such a complete & total home body these days. If we ever move from this house I will be sad. It is a very modest 2,300 square feet, but it is ours & it feels so safe here.
As a kid one of the many places we lived was in Katy. It was grades 4th through 7th for me. The house was painted light yellow & we were renting it. I think it was the first house we ever lived in. Before then we moved from apartment to apartment. We lived there with my brother's father & my mom. There was drug use in that house, also. I remember needles. I remember walking in a room and seeing people using needles. My brother's dad was not a nice man. He was downright mean actually. He was very abusive to my mother & it is my belief that he is the person who introduced her to drugs. I think she may have done acid in high school. I do not blame him for who she is today. I believe that we must all be held accountable for our own actions, but together in that house they did drugs. A lot of them. With 4 children all under the age of 10 in that house.
Even though the home was a nightmare on the inside I can remember loving Katy. I loved the people. I would escape to neighbors houses as often as possible. We had some really nice neighbors. I do think I always tried to hide what was really going on in that house, but they all knew. There were a lot of fights & the police were at that house often. The fits of rage would be so scary. I remember one day, it was my sister C's* birthday. The stepdad was mad at my mom & he tore all of her wrapped presents open one by one. I can remember her face like it was yesterday. She was short with long blonde hair. Her face was round and pudgy. She was terrified. I wanted to save her. I wanted to whisk her away. I knew I would be okay, but would she? I wanted her to be okay. I wanted us all to just be okay.
We left that house rather abruptly & I don't know why. I can remember leaving a lot of our stuff there, in the garage. That memory haunted me for years. I mean who leaves half their shit in the garage when they move? How disrespectful to the owners of that house who had to clean up your mess. We moved into a house that had a pool in the backyard. It was towards Clear Lake & I hated living there. The school was awful. The people were awful. The carpet in that house was blue. Royal. Blue. Little did I know we wouldn't be there long. We only lived in that house for a year. The stepdad was cheating on my mom & told her he was in love with another woman. I was thinking "Hallelujah, thank you, God." The worst was still yet to come though.
For many years I had dreams about Katy, Texas. I had dreams that I lived there again. I had these dreams over & over as a kid. When I was able to afford a home I knew where I was going to live. After dating for 3 years my boyfriend & I decided that we were going to build a house. We knew we were going to get married that year. We looked in other parts of Houston, but none of those places felt right. We came to search in Katy & even my boyfriend liked it's vibe. We stood in a field with the saleswoman on a corner lot & we said "Yes, we'll take it." We would come & visit periodically as the house was being built &when the frame was up I cried. I cried because this was the frame of MY house. A safe place where there was no violence, no drug use, no abuse. There would be love in this house, peace & harmony. There have been so many wonderful memories in this house. I don't ever want to leave. This isn't just a house, it is a home.
Have a great day everyone!
*I will only use initials when referring to other people on this blog. I will do this in an effort to respect their privacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment