The last week I’ve felt great, all but fully recovered from my covid diagnosis. It’s a beautiful day today after it rained cats and dogs last week, and the fall light is shining through the windows the same way it used to when I was growing up in this house. There are many reasons why autumn is my favorite season, but I think a big one, one that I’m just now realizing, is that it brings feelings of nostalgia for my childhood spent in our home.
Back then the house wasn’t in the best shape, and even though my parents renovated it from top to bottom in the 80’s, it was already considered dated, with tears in the wallpaper and cracks in the tile floors. My friends all had newer, prettier houses (in my opinion) and if I’m being honest, I was always a bit jealous of them. But not in the fall. In the fall our house seemed to come alive. The 1924 oak floors shined in the afternoon light that was pouring through the old windows as the dust settled on them, making our already old house feel even older in the most charming way.
My mom would go all out for fall, decorating our house with decorations both handmade and store-bought. We would watch Halloween movies for two months straight and eat chili and spaghetti and other foods that I now associate with this time of year. The coolness of the air around this time (that we’re all still patiently waiting for) also always gets me excited for what’s to come.
I think raising kids in this house has a lot to do with the nostalgia I feel lately. We’re raising three kids (two older boys and a younger sister), the same way my mom raised me, my brother and my younger sister, in the same house, on the same street, that I grew up in. Of course I would feel this way, right? How could I not?
I relish in the fact that our kids will have warm, comforting memories in our family home as they get older the same way I do now. At least, I hope they do. It wasn’t perfect then (goodness it wasn’t perfect) and it’s not perfect now, but it’s home. You know what I mean?
I love that PJ loves to decorate for seasons, too. We lay out our fall garland and our wreaths. PJ displays pumpkins (both real and fake) on various tables throughout the house. We incorporate pops of orange here and there. It feels like home to us: safe, inviting, lived-in and comfortable. Our house was always a mess growing up; not dirty, but definitely messy, like you could 100% tell that a single mom with three young kids lived there. There would be piles of laundry all over the couches and stacks of papers on the dining room table. Details. Little things.
And even though there’s two of us, and even though we work from home, our house is also messy, cluttered and easily identifiable as to how many kids live here. And I absolutely love it.
As we walked to school the other morning, we had to bundle up to stay warm. Fall is here, at least for this week (it will most likely be back in the mid 80’s next week because that’s how weather in Tennessee rolls), and all the nostalgia is rushing back with it. And I welcome it every year.
How could I not?