Old Mcdonald had a house

I don't typically feel attached to homes. I've lived in 13 houses over the course of 37 years, most of which were before the age of 15. Right before the summer of ninth grade, my mom, my sister and I moved into Bruce's house on Mcdonald. He must have really loved my mom, because he willingly and warmly welcomed three women, two of which had raging teenage-bitch hormones, into his sparsely decorated bachelor pad. If I remember right, I was skeptical upon moving in. He insisted it was to become our home in every sense of the word and to treat it as such. I probably (most definitely) rolled by eyes (which we can all agree is the most annoying teenage trait around), and doubted very much that we were as welcome as he insisted we were. Always the skeptic and untrusting girl, I was sure at some point he would declare that I was just lucky to be there, or that I wasn't grateful enough that he took us in, but he never did.
Not even when boys called at all hours of the night and Bruce would stumble in my room half asleep to give me the phone.
Or when I dyed my hair burgundy to look like Claire Danes in My So-Called Life at eleven o'clock at night and woke everyone up with the blow dryer.
Or when I practiced holocaust monologues in the garage.
Or when my drama troupe spent the weekend there and Bruce's dog died. (I don't know if the two are directly related, but....)
Or when I  spilled nail polish remover on the new carpet.
Or when I cleaned absolutely nothing over the course of time that I lived there.

So the house on Mcdonald has a special place in my heart because it was one of the few places I've ever felt at home. It was also where I lived during my formative years when I was just Nikki. Not Nikki the mom, or wife, or interpreter, or whatever...just sort of Nikki before anything really important happened in life but everything important sort of did. Only my core friends were invited over, because it's not always comfortable letting people into your personal family space with all of its weird dynamics.  It's where I hid out when teenage acne was the hell of me, and where I cried myself to sleep after Winter Formal because I spent hours getting ready and my date made a fat joke at my expense about a minute after pulling out of the driveway. It's where I played Mario Kart on the living room floor and had Blockbuster and pizza nights on the couch. It's where I brought my family and my kids, and what we lovingly refer to as Nana's house. And I thought of all of this and all of the most important people in my life who had ever walked through that door while I was packing up dishes last weekend. I was genuinely sad to say goodbye to that house, to Nana's house, to teenage Nikki's house. I drove away last weekend thinking of all of the memories I made there, both good and bad, and felt grateful for every single one.

Last swim

For the record, I'm never wearing this dress again. I'm not pregnant, but this dress says otherwise.