It was blue. A converted lofted barn that had a garage built onto it with a red roof, situated on a large wooded lot. The porch was a wrap-around, a porch swinging on one end. Downstairs there was a room that was used by my niece, nephews, and me, hat had toys and hot wheels and a small knobbed tv with an antenna hooked up to a VCR player. Across from this open room with purple carpet and faded yellow wallpaper was a tiny kitchen with barstools where I ate most of my meals. Through the kitchen was the living room. Faded yellow wallpaper and green and white linoleum with a door to the garage and access to the master bathroom downstairs. Past the bathroom was a bedroom with two entryways. It’s where my dad slept since he snored so loudly.

That second entrance ended up back in that first room where I played on that coarse purple carpet. There was a small bathroom on that side as well, and a set of stairs leading to my mom and baby brother.  It overlooked the wooded acreage and was long and thin with access panels to the insulated roof on either side. The whole house was surrounded by pine trees and a dirt road that dwindled two miles down to the highway. My older sister had a trailer on the property as well, where she lived with her husband and three kids who were my age. There was a big pit in the backyard daddy used to burn trash, and a group of single-wide trailers sat on the other side of the driveway. The place had been built by my PawPaw, and Daddy bought it from him.

We lost the place to foreclosure after my mom and dad separated, when my brother was two and I was nearly eight. While I would not call the place stable, it was the longest I ever lived in one place until I was 24 years old and living at the place I call home now. It had a lot of memories, mostly bad, but some good, and now it belongs to someone else.