Sayin' Goodbye to a Building

In the silence that marked much of the last year or so, my mother got re-married to The New Guy. While The New Guy doesn’t feel like a bad guy, he presence has added serious strain to the three person family unit that formed after Dad died. Things involving The New Guy have been happening fast. Or, at least at a pace that seems like fast from here. They started dating in July of last year, were engaged by September and married just after Christmas. Around May sometime, it was decided that they wouldn’t be spending another winter in Indiana.

So, for the long weekend, I road tripped home to the suburb of cornfields to say goodbye to a building.The New Homestead is going cease being a place I can attach roots too just as soon as they can sell it. I’ve never actually been more than a visitor to the house Mom had built just as I graduated college; but, some part of me had accepted the moving of my ‘roots’  five miles north-ish as the crow flies. This single story house with the nearly white carpets and the amazing ability to give me a nose bleed provided me a great retreat. I could visit, chat, and sleep without feeling like too much of a lazy bum. Oddly enough, it still felt like home without any house specific memories.

Now, the only reason I have to go back to the suburb of cornfields will be for funerals where I’ll once again be introduced to family members I couldn’t pick out of a lineup. I’m sad to loose the link to where my roots are. I don’t ever want to live there again; but having direct ties to a place that felt like home provided an almost tangible grounding in reality.