My grandmother’s selling her house and moving to a luxury condo. The move is good, because she’s living in a sort of big house with just my grandfather, who had a stroke six years ago and hasn’t been able to talk or walk very well since. Her children do yard work for her, she gets stressed out every time it snows because she hates shovelling, and my grandfather has to climb stairs every day. So, all in all, the move is a very good thing. But it’ll be strange when they live somewhere different. I’ve been going to that house ever since I was born. When I was in first grade, I had to draw a picture of something that scared me and pretended that the creaky boards in the attic did. My cousins and I used to play school in the attic, croquet and badminton and tag in the yard, and house in the shed. We used to swim, too, but the pool was torn down a few years ago. That house was a big part of my childhood, and it’ll be strange to see it go.

I don’t really feel sad about it. It just feels like a big part of my life is over. Like I’m moving on, away from the times when I used to sit on the little exposed rock by the pool and eat ice cream cones. I feel like so many parts of my childhood have just been left behind. I used to love to go swimming, now I never do. I used to go out ever night in the summer and play hide and go seek with all the kids in my neighborhood, but that stopped years ago. It’s been a long time since I was in the woods in my back yard.

It’s not that I want to go back. I have other things to do now, and I wouldn’t want to run around with the kids next door. But it just reminds me how nothing ever stays the same. In ten years I’ll look back and say “Wow, remember all that stuff I did in high school? I went to Panera all the time and hung around at school.” And the school will be a dim memory with a certain smell, just like elementary school is now.

Life is change.