As I sit here in the house that I moved into with Cassie back in December of 2020, I am full of memories from years past. The song “The House That Built Me” pops into my head on a daily basis.
“The House That Built Me” (written by Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin, and recorded by American country music artist Miranda Lambert) is a song that I always loved.
The song struck a chord with me (pun intended), just like it did Miranda Lambert. In the Wide Open Country article, “The Story Behind Miranda Lambert’s ‘The House That Built Me’“, the article says the following on Lambert’s connection to the song:
But Lambert, who was dating [Blake] Shelton at the time, heard the songs too. And her reaction was immediately more visceral. “It was beautiful,” Lambert told Today at the time. “I mean, I just started bawling from the second I heard it. [Shelton] was like, ‘If you have a reaction to this song like that, then you need to cut it.'”
“The House That Built Me” is a song that really hits home. Throughout the song, its female narrator describes returning, as an adult, to the house that she grew up in, and asking the person who now lives in the house if she could step inside and take a look around. She refers to it as “the house that built [her],” because of all the memories that she had of growing up within its walls.
I was fortunate to have been born and raised in the same town, living in the same house up until adulthood. I know that many are not as fortunate, which helps me realize how lucky and blessed I really was, and am, to have had that opportunity.
Going through and packing up a few things, I came across some things that I received growing up, such as the plaque from my second grade teacher at the end of the year. It has a picture of us both and a poem. When I received it, I immediately hung it on my wall. It has stayed in the same place until I moved it, almost twenty years later. When I look at it, I’m taken back to my beautiful memories in my school district growing up.
Same goes for the certificates I received when I graduated from Double H Ranch’s traditional camp (ages 6-16) and their alumni program (ages 17-21). I’m taken back to my time in the Woods where I transcended my diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy by skiing down the ski hill in their Winter Program and climbing a ropes course into the trees and zip-lining down to the ground. And to the gold and silver medals I won in the Adaptive Empire State Games in Lake Placid, NY, in 2006 and 2008. I wouldn’t have been able to go if it weren’t for Double H.
Throughout the house, there are more memories. The side yard where our RV sits, we had a Jay Feather by Jayco that we got years ago from Albany RV. We took that camping for many years before we traded it in for a full-shell RV (the “wings” on the Jayco made it so my sister, Loren, and I sometimes got wet when it rained because the wings were essentially tents attached to the RV by velcro. (Although the wings were extremely safe, they were a pain to sleep in when wet!)
When in the dining room, I am taken back to the days when my paternal grandmother and maternal grandparents would come for holiday dinners. I am also taken back to my Cub Scout days where my father and I worked on my car for the Pinewood Derby in my days in Cub Scouts.
There are many more, but those are just a few memories from The House That Built Me. What are some of yours?