Who says you can't go home?

Nah, that's not me. That's Bon Jovi. 

I'm borrowing a technique from a writer friend of mine who was gone too soon. She always began and ended her blog posts with borrowed quotes. I always thought it a cool tie into pop culture, and so on. (Amber, you rocked). 

The past seven days have been a deep dive into my childhood. When Mama Green passed away in March, we began the exorcism of her years of hoarding. 

Mama was a lot of things, but nobody will ever accuse her of minimalism. If 1 was good, 20 were better. And in the piles were buried treasure. 

But I must digress to the home of my childhood. I grew up on an idyllic farm, about an hour away from Cleveland, OH. We had produce, livestock and open spaces. We had come from the city to the country, but our home remained a retreat. Friends and family would visit the farm. It remained idyllic, until it didn't. 

Today, following the absolute auction that we held to close out mom's estate, I went back to my childhood home to inventory the things left behind. 

There was a lot. In the piles of hoards that mom accumulated, the liquidators found themselves in a place of stopping. They sold and sold and sold, and still things were missed. 

Home I went. I walked again the property, thinking, "is this the last time?" as I have for the past 8 months. I really didn't shed many tears, though my heart was heavy. I cursed that "stuff" took over. 

I was there to inventory what was left. We have a few weeks to shed those things. Multiple articles tell us that "nobody wants this stuff" and yet, I think, it has a soul. It has history. 

I want to tell that story. 

Instead, I am left with shells of rooms and echoing memories. I walked the farm. I started to carry rubbish out of the basement to the dumpster, while quietly vowing, I just want to remember this place in a way that isn't gross. I want to look and see memories not piles of stuff. I'm a little raw today. But once I comforted the raw, I saw the yard where family laughed, where kids ran, and the house where love lived, however temporarily. 

I was home. I walked around the empty rooms and talked to mom. I talked to dad. I talked to my brothers and my grandparents. I talked to everyone who had a lovely memory there. I apologized to all the folks who didn't and I realized that a lot of things land a little tenderly. The inclination is to tell only good stories, but like anywhere, the stories aren't just good. 

In the end, I didn't go home. I only visited. Because in the end, "home is just another word for you."

Nah, that's not me, that's Billy Joel. 

Thank you everyone for being you.