Our House

My parents are selling the house and part of the land where I grew up. This is very traumatic for me. I'm not joking. I wake up sobbing about it. I'm still not joking. I'm sure it seems very melodramatic, but understand: I did live there all of my childhood, except for roughly 9 months in California, where I was born. I'm very fond of the house and land. We lived out of town, and I had few friends growing up. The majority of my time as a younger kid was spent playing outside, exploring the fields and pastures, and riding my bike a half mile to the old, abandoned house near the river. When I was older, I'd still ride my bike around, just usually the other direction. I would always hope that John Davis would look out the window and think I was cute!
It's upsetting to me to think of other people living in the house, decorating it, painting it, putting up new barns on the land and tearing down the old barn. In fact, I'm sure I've written a bad, teen angst-filled poem about that barn. I'll try and track it down. What a treat that would be!
In my grand plans, I had always thought that any kids I had, would end up spending summers there. I knew, before I had the kids, that because of the divorce, this would not be the case. So, I have been preparing, but I am still heartbroken that my kids won't spend any time at the farm.
I feel displaced. I feel out of sorts.

When I was about five, and felt out of sorts, I would run away.
I would run away to the city.
Now, because we lived six miles away from the nearest semblance of a town, finding the "city" was a bit difficult. I knew that the city was also known as the "concrete jungle", so I settled for the nearest concrete available. I would pack up my little blue polka-dotted vinyl bag and matching umbrella, and retreat to a tiny patch of concrete sidewalk that had never gotten connected to the decks, or house. It was at least 15 feet away from the house.
If I was still feeling out of sorts, and that distance seemed too close to the humanity of my household, I would retreat to a city that was even further away. 25 feet away from the house was a patch of concrete that would eventually hold an enormous satellite dish. It was yet still empty, and I would sulk about. I would huff and sigh. I would think of all the ways I was mistreated. I would eat my snack that I packed and then complain that I was still hungry, starving, in fact! I would realize that even though the city afforded me an independence of some kind, there was no one loving to hear my plaintive cries.
I would pack it all up and go home. I would always be welcomed there.

There is no point to this story. I just remembered it and so I am sharing.

I always thought that I would go home, welcomed, and I would take the kids and husband outside and point at the places where I used to play, or run away to, or not-so-secretly smoke cigarettes. If the house sells, which it eventually will, then that scenario becomes awkward. You cannot wander around property that isn't yours, and point out where you built a mosquito haven or where you found your favorite batch of kittens. Even in the far reaches of the North, the police would be called, and you would be escorted off the land.
So with no visits to trigger my memory, I worry that I'll forget what to tell the kids. I worry that they won't know that for years we had a butterscotch-colored hippie van in our driveway, and that my parents drove it from California to Minnesota, with 2 kids, and I think, a cat. The house and land are very connected to my, to our, memories, and without them, how will I do at giving these kids the history of a family that's now slightly bent? How will I tell them, if I can't show them that we were all happy?