the writing on the wall

I took my sister home for her 35th Birthday. It was one of the the most powerful experiences in my life (so far). You see, I wanted to return to our favourite childhood home. I wrote to the owners (who, to my surprise were the ones who bought the house from us in the 80's). They remembered us for more reasons than one. You see, the owner explained that we left a big piece of us when we moved away and the writing on the wall remained after all these years! I couldn't believe it.

My father began renovating the bathroom just before they separated. My mother allowed us to use it as a mural because it would "eventually" get covered with new dry wall. The job never got done! We moved and left the bathroom in this condition and the new owners were going to finish the job.... only they left it for 20 years!!!

Carrie and I used it as a canvass for self expression. We used to write poems on it, names of our favourite bands, our favourite boyfriends and we'd also get our friends to sign the wall! It was covered in people's signatures!

For whatever reason, the new owners learned to live with this unsightly mess and they grew fond of it. Never did I expect that this wall would still exist when we returned to our childhood home. The new owner explained that though they loved the wall, I called at the right time because they would finally be covering the wall within a month. Talk about fate. That wall needed to be seen by us again. It represented so much to my sister and I. Our identity, our past, our wonderful adolescent years; our growth, our loss.

So there we were. We drove up on a lovely October afternoon in 2004. Over twenty years later. I blind-folded Carrie and told her I had a surprise! We walked up the stairs and into the bathroom. Off came the blind-fold and there we stood in front of this wall. Carrie looked at me in disbelief. It was the most exhilarating experience. I could hear our hearts pounding out of our chests. It felt like we had transcended back into time together.

We were home again.