I think my sparkly red shoes are out of order because this just isn't home.

Tonight I feel very melancholy. We went to my parents house to pick up some stuff they left behind. It was very big and empty and it's always been full of good smells and conversation. Max enjoyed running all over the hard wood floors and sliding in a big and empty space. He wasn't usually allowed to be in there for too long because he was just too hyper to stay in their house. Standing in that house, for possibly the last time, I remembered all the times I had been there. I have been in and out of that house since I was 19 years old and my grandparents lived there.

When I moved away from home for the very first time after school, it was to that house. I spent the first Christmas, after my grandmother died, in that house with my lost grandfather and sad mother. When my parents moved in, after both my grandparents were gone, that house was full of Hawaii family that visited us in Texas. When my husband and I got married and moved to Texas, this was the first house we lived in before buying our own. Every single holiday that Big Red and I have spent here in Texas has been celebrated in that house with my parents. That house has been a part of my life for over 25 years and the thought of strangers renting it out and not knowing all of this made me sad.

I know it sounds ridiculous to shed tears over something like this, but there you have it. In the back of my mind I keep thinking after one winter in Idaho, they will be back. This is why they rented it out instead of selling it, right? Lord, let it be a cold Christmas in Boise because I miss my mommy and daddy.

K