There are certain songs that when they come on the radio I will stop and listen no matter what. I’ll sit in my car the extra couple of minutes to finish the song, even if I’ve already arrived at my destination. Miranda Lambert’s The House that Built Me is one of those songs.
I know they say you cant go home again.
I just had to come back one last time.
Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam.
But these handprints on the front steps are mine.
And up those stairs, in that little back bedroom
is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar.
And I bet you didn’t know under that live oak
my favorite dog is buried in the yard.
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I’m someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear I’ll leave.
Won’t take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.
Mama cut out pictures of houses for years.
From ‘Better Homes and Garden’ magazines.
Plans were drawn, concrete poured,
and nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama’s dream.
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I’m someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave.
Won’t take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.
You leave home, you move on and you do the best you can.
I got lost in this whole world and forgot who I am.
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I’m someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could walk around I swear I’ll leave.
Won’t take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.
My childhood home turns 29 years old this month and it is the epitome of that song. I lived in this one house my entire life before I moved to college. My Dad built our house for the most part. My parents started digging the foundation for the house on Christmas day in 1985 and it was finished about 6 months later. Over the years the house has changed, a deck was added to the back, the kitchen has been updated. I wrote about the update of the den in this post here. An extra garage was built out back, and then a shelter, and another shelter. I still remember the day they poured the concreate for the slab behind the extra garage, I was about 10 and dad let me write my name in the concreate to be forever frozen in time.
There are lots of other memories I have from this house. The time I spilled Pepsi on the carpet in the den and then tried to clean it up without telling anyone. My mom finally saw the stain a couple of weeks later and made me rent one of those washing vacuums from the grocery store to clean the carpet…ekk! Or all the times I spent learning to cook with my mom in the kitchen, or with my dad outside riding the lawn mower or making things at his work bench. Bertha was the first of many hurricanes I experienced in that house. We lost power for 5 days in the middle of July. We had no generator (but immediately bought one afterwards) and we were not prepared for that experience. I witnessed Bertha bring down our above ground pool with the snap of a pine tree. Luckily it didn’t hit the house.
My mom had a local New Bern artist paint a water color picture of the house for my Dad as a Christmas gift one year. Willie Taglieri painted the picture back in the early 90s. The house hasn’t changed much on the outside and looks very similar to the picture, still. I would love to get my own version of it someday. Here it is in the remodeled den.
For now, I have a picture of it in my house. My best friend and her husband made me this cool wooden frame for Christmas, after admiring the ones they had built for themselves in their house.
I was trying to figure out the perfect picture/art to go in the frame. I really wanted to add some art to the wall by the front door and decided to hang the frame there. Here’s the before picture of my wall by the front door.
It only took me 6 months to finally decide what picture to put in this frame and where to hang it! But it looks great and adds some character to the wall by the front door.
