Free Personal Narratives: You Can’t Go Home Again

You Can’t Go Home Again

I sat in my friend's Oldsmobile with her three year old in the car seat resting in the back, as we traveled down the street towards my former residence behind the city park. My friend, Sarah, now a MOM, was eager to show me the transformation to the front of my old home. She kept saying, that I would never believe it as we approached the house, I could only see bareness. All of the bushes, flowers, and gardens that surrounded the house were removed. The windows appeared naked without curtains or blinds to dress them. Disappointment and disgust ran through my veins as I thought about the care and attention my mother had given to our home only to be stripped of it all by the new occupants. What a bad sale my parents had made!

Across the street on the corner across from my house sat the home of one of our most sincere, comedic, church-going classmates. We had many visits to his home and had attended a number of his pool parties during our high school years. We noticed that parked in the driveway of his parent's home was a family van with Kentucky license plates. Well Sarah and I at almost the same time blurted out, Mark! We knew that he had attended a Christian university in Louisville, but that along the way, got his girlfriend pregnant and had a child out of wedlock. Ironic, I thought to myself. Could it really be the jesting, sarcastic, red-headed Mark who we had not seen since high school graduation?

We were both excited and probably a little nervous to see him again, so my friend turned into the driveway. We each had wide grins on our faces, while we debated whether or not to actually get down and ring his doorbell. I don't know what we were afraid of, but the conversation for about a minute, went along the lines of, "No you go. No you go . . . ."

I eventually succumbed to her plea, since she used her daughter as an excuse for not getting out of the car.

I felt awkward strolling up the sidewalk and glanced back to the car once, before finally reaching his front door. Maybe only his mother would be home I thought to myself.