When you are little you love your house, no matter what. It’s your castle, your playground. Your fortress of solitude. No one has a porch as big as yours, and certainly they’ve never seen a deck and rope swing like the one you have out back. No sir. Then you grow up, move away. If you’re lucky, your parents stay — but every time you go back to visit, it gets just a bit smaller. Perhaps a tad shabbier. You stay away for a long time. When you finally go back home, you’re shocked. It’s run down, dusty, falling apart in places. At first you wrinkle your nose, but the more you look around, the harder you look, you see it. Those bits that you loved peek back at you. Your favorite reading spot is still there. And you realize you could never quit it entirely. In fact, you dream that maybe someday it could be your house. And you could fix it, make it better than it ever was. Maybe you can. Let’s hope so.
