Believing in ghosts

Ghosts -- they come in all shapes and sizes and, yes, I do believe in them. I have felt the sadness and the heaviness at Gettysburg and Arlington Cemetery and a cold chill go down my back when I took that final walk into my gramps’ house to pack up his life. I even feel the presence of the ghost living in my dishwasher; I named his Terrance. But the strongest ghost I ever felt was the ghost of my former self.

The summer before my freshman year of high school, I packed up my room and moved from my Baltimore suburb to Michigan. That was my first move, but it wouldn’t be my last. Of all the times since then that I have packed up and changed zip codes, the first one has stuck with me the most. 

Maybe it was because I had to grow up and say goodbye to my childhood home or maybe because it was the furthest distance. I’m not sure. But whatever the reason, that life changing moment has stuck with me to this day.

My first year in Michigan was hard, partly because I couldn’t let go of the school, the house, the people and the life I left behind. I even tried to go back and made it all the way to the check-in line at the airport before my dad caught up with me. He knew it was hard for me to uproot my life, but he convinced me I had to stay in Holland and stick it out. He promised it would get better.

That summer, just under a year since I left Columbia, my parents let me fly back for a week and stay with some friends. They knew how much I was struggling to adjust to my new life and how much I missed the old one. They thought if I could go back from time to time, it could help me to not feel so cut off from my old life and help me transition into my new one.

The first few days in Columbia were amazing. I visited my old stomping grounds, caught up with some friends and helped out at my old teams’ swim meet. But I hadn’t gone back to my old town house. I was scared to see it. I knew a young couple bought it but I didn’t know if or how they had changed it. I didn’t want the way it had changed to affect my memory of the house and my life in it. 

The last day I was in Columbia, I took a walk and ended up outside my old house. I sat on the sidewalk, staring at it for hours. My mom’s garden of impatience was still next to the front walk and the shudders were still black. I was glad to see my initials were still carved in the doorframe on the bottom left corner. I didn’t know if the new owners left them there on purpose or if they just didn’t notice them, but I was glad they survived. 

After a while, the new owners, Mr. and Mrs. Whitman, came out. Mr. Whitman asked if I was hurt or lost. Once I explained I was fine and that this used to be my house, he laughed and asked if I wanted to come inside and look around.

While I was apprehensive to cross the threshold, I followed him in the front door and immediately felt out of place. Right away, I could tell the Whitmans had done a lot of renovations to the house since they moved in. The front landing’s bi-level steps were no longer carpeted; instead they wore a hardwood finish with a dark cherry tone.  

I crept up the first flight of stairs and entered the kitchen. The Whitmans had replaced all the cabinets and brought in one of those stainless steel refrigerators that made the room look cold. This was no longer the kitchen where my mom served thousands of grilled cheese sandwiches to her daycare kids. 

I turned and looked at the pantry. When my sister and I were growing up in that house, my mom marked our heights on the pantry door every birthday. I knew she cut the wallpaper off the door, rolled it up and saved the chart before we moved, but it was still strange to not see it on that door. 

I walked through the dining room and stopped at the sliding glass door that lined one of the living room walls. The summer we moved, my mom and I rebuilt the deck that jutted out of that second story sliding glass door. It was an awesome project. Neither one of us had built a deck before or even held a nail gun. I remember how we both jumped and our dog barked every time we nailed the two-by-fours together. When I looked at the deck, I could tell it wasn’t the deck she and I built. The Whitmans had replaced it and gotten rid of the black rot-iron bars that framed it. 

Mrs. Whitman asked if I wanted to go upstairs and see my old room. I politely declined. They had made so many changes to the house on this level that I couldn’t bear to see what they had done to my old room. I remembered it was pale pink with the most hideous green carpet that I loved. I wanted to keep the memory of my room intact. I thanked the Whitmans for allowing me to visit and excused myself before they saw my tears.

I walked straight out the front door and kept on going for about another hour. I needed air. I needed to wrap my brain around the concept -- once and for all -- that I no longer lived on High Beam Court. I forced myself to accept that the life I had left was gone and I was no longer that person. I told myself over and over again that I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t go back to being that girl, living in that house, living in that town. 

On my flight back to Michigan, I swore once the plane touched down I would give Holland another try. Holland was home, no matter how much I didn’t want to be there. That was reality and if I was going to survive the next three years of high school in that town, I would have to open up and give the town and the people in it a try. 

Surprisingly enough, I did survive high school and part of college in Holland. While most people consider their hometown to be where they went to high school, I still call Columbia my hometown. I loved growing up there. I loved the people, the neighborhood, the school and that house. But I haven’t been back since. I miss that town but I miss the girl I was when I lived there. But she is just a ghost. She is a figment of who I used to be, not who I am or who I will become.