Movin' On Up

After what seemed like a short time living in our first house in Drummond, our family moved to a new house. It would essentially be the house that I grew up in. (Some of you reading this have been in that house.) It was a light brown brick house located directly across the street from Fleer's Gas Station where I got my first job. More on that another day. This house was so much better than what we had. I had my own separate bedroom. No one had to go through mine to get to theirs. I remember the first time we went to look at the place. I could walk through the kitchen into the dining room, into the living room, and back into the kitchen making a full circle. At the age of almost five, that was quite a luxury. It meant we had room to move around without bumping into one another all the time. What an incredible feeling it is to move into a new place. The quandary of what goes where, what do we need to make it home, why is the toilet pink? All these things run through your head as you carry box after box out of the old house and into the new. Being almost five during this move, I'm sure I was loads of help. *He said tongue in cheek.* Everyone has born witness to the well meaning gestures of a five year old. I would carry in a little box, go check out the back yard, hide in the closet, play with the dog, crawl under the workbench in the garage, and finally carry in another little box. Moving was hard work! Miraculously, all of our belongings made it into the new house. We were home. Nighttime was the hardest thing to get used to. When I was in the old house, my bed was up against the wall so that I had to get out of it on the left side. In the new house, I had to relearn to get out on the right side. I was an insomniac from an early age, so I would wake up, go to the bathroom, get a drink of water and go back to bed a lot. Those first few nights were harrowing because I would try to climb out of bed and kick or head-butt the wall. After the shock of performing my best professional wrestling moves on a immovable object, I would get out of bed only to be totally confused as to where I was. The bathroom was in the wrong place, Mom and Dad were right across the hall instead of on the other side of the house, and the kitchen wasn't right outside my bedroom door. I'm sure if there were cameras in the house, it would have been laughable to see footage of a small kid meandering from room to room in the dark trying to figure out where the hell he was. After about a week, though, it was old hat to me. I could close my eyes and navigate the whole house, which I often did. I was awake, but opening my eyes seemed to be one step closer to being all the way awake. I didn't need that hassle. Those nights of half awakedness, has stayed with me all these years. On any given night you can see me meandering through the house in the dark trying to find a glass of water. The difference between then and now...they don't make footy pajamas in a men's 2XL, which is just sad.

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