April 2009.
P.S. Beside is a picture for a garage organizer company (garagegeek.com) that I found on the net. This in not my garage....only in my dreams!!!
The garage door opener is broken, has been for months now. It probably just needs new batteries, but none of us in the household seem in a hurry to fix it. It's not like we would actually use it anyways.
It does seem silly. We have an attached garage on our home. I am sure the builder intended this area to be used to park your vehicle in. But one glance into the garage from the laundry room door and it's quite apparent this won't be happening. Our garage is a strange universe on to its own complete with its own force field which sucks in vast amounts of unusual objects from the home itself. There is no room for a vehicle...it thinks it's an attic or better yet a museum!
What is it about getting older as I have accumulated memories I have also accumulated strange memorabilia that now fills my garage. Do I really need broken hockey sticks and a 3 wheeled skateboard collection from years gone by? Should the puzzle-like pieces of tents, fishing poles and camping equipment that rarely saw the great outdoors fill the space where our car should be? More importantly is it even wise to keep smelly hockey jerseys with holes in them and mouldy sports equipment from decades past in there too?
The answer I already know; of course not. But it's hard to let go. I am afraid I will forget those times associated with those objects, so even though they are broken, in bad repair and frankly smell bad, I keep em. Why? There is a little skip in the heart when I stumble across some long forgotten item from the past while I manoeuvre my way through the maze of a garage. It's that moment of glee and remembering that allows me to overlook the obvious disarray. It's not like I'm a serial packrat, as a family we are avid recyclers and are quick to pass on items of good repair. For me, it's the broken down smelly stuff that should go to the dump that I have the packrat problem with! The reason, my heart hurts with that sad sinking feeling when I know it's the end of the line for this stuff. It's just hard to say goodbye.
This admission of mine has led me to some thoughts on the value of 'home' and how we came to claim our comfortable family home as ours in the first place. We moved into this suburban neighbourhood compete with elementary school and parks and small fishing lake when I was pregnant with our son back in 1992. It was my first experience with the 'nesting' syndrome and I was on a one-track mission to get us in a family home. I needed to prepare and convinced my husband that the home we had just toured with our agent was the one for us. It had a perfect room for a nursery and the location was close to the park and school. We signed on the dotted line, and moved in within weeks. I could breathe easier now in my hormone fuelled 'mother-to-be' world. However my husband was not as convinced that this was the home of his dreams. There were some things I had overlooked. We had the backyard of a postage stamp, backed on to a major noisy road and from the front; our home looked almost identical to every other home on the street. My husband was a good sport though, and kept his thoughts to himself as we welcomed our son home in June of that year. Soon after, it became apparent that we would need to rethink our decision. I remember the day we both came to this realization.
It was a warm sunny day. I was out walking along our street, pushing the baby carriage when I noticed the strangest thing happening in our driveway, the garage door just opened even though my husband wasn't even home from work yet. As I looked and walked closer I could see the garage door close and then open again. It did this repeatedly as I drew closer yet there was no one in the garage or in the driveway. Very strange, I was nervous as I approached the home. Not much further down the road, I saw my husband's truck approaching so I flagged him down. He rolled down his window, "I think someone is breaking into our home, or our garage door is possessed!" I said. He looked right at me with the most confused expression and said. “I can't explain right now I'll be back soon" and hurried out of the neighbourhood only to reappear a minute later and meet me in front of our home. I climbed into his truck with our young son in tote and the three of us sat their in our driveway while the explanation of the possessed garage door came out. While coming home from work and mind wandering my husband had some how missed turning into our driveway and pulled into the (very similar)next door neighbours driveway instead. He pushed the garage door opener several times to no avail before he figured out he was at the wrong house and saw his own garage door going up and down just next door. In his embarrassment, he quickly backed out of their driveway and tried to cover up his mistake by backing into our driveway like he was attempting to do this all along.
Here's where the story gets really embarrassing; somehow he 'overshot the driveway' again and backed into the neighbour’s driveway on the other side of our place! The garage door again continued to go up and down at our place till he figured out what he had done. At this point he was so rattled he chose to get back on the street, leave the neighbourhood, turn around and starts the process again 'with a clean slate'. As he recanted his bizarre driveway story, we both realized this was not the home for us. We were not cut out for a home that looked exactly like everyone else's on the street. We put the home on the market that very week.
On our son's first birthday, we took possession of our next and last 'new to us' home. It's in the same neighbourhood, but the home was a little older and had some privacy and a unique look. There are so many good memories attached to our home of 16 years now it is going to be very hard to say goodbye when the time comes again to move on. Our son first learned to ride a bike on our little street. He walked from our backyard down the hiking trail to the school yard everyday. There was a whole crew of kids on the street that all grew up together through those early years. We called them the "snack gang" as they went from house to house seeing if they could get a snack from the neighbours when they were hungry while playing. They had backyard tenting adventures, tree forts and sprinkler wars in our backyard as well as many garage sales, lemonade stands and car washes in our driveway. My father even moved in with us for 2 years and we created a 'basement bachelor pad' as his health was failing. I am thankful he got to experience some of his grandson's growing, fun and exciting world first hand. I know it gave him great joy. I also know our home has been truly lived in and I am thankful for that.
Our son drives himself now, a backyard for tree forts and tenting adventures isn't as important anymore, he is also looking at enrolling in university in another city next year. My husband has just moved his business to a new building the other side of town. It's a longer commute. And sadly, my dad has passed on, so the need for the 'basement bachelor pad' has also passed with time. Our circumstances are changing, I can see a time in the not so distant future where we will move on from this home into one that better suits our needs. Perhaps our home will be 'recycled' too. I really hope another young family can breathe new life, new memories into these walls and enjoy it as much as we have. It will be hard to say goodbye, but there are clear signs or should I say, smells, that this is inevitable. The fact the garage door opener isn't working right now has elevated the smelly memorabilia trapped in the garage to new heights, so alas, I am replacing the batteries for the garage door opener this week and heading to the dump. After all spring is just around the corner so, fresh start, out with the old and in with the new.
One thing I am sure of, my vision of home will remain much the same no matter where we live. I believe we all need a place that feels familiar, a place of comfort, and a unique place to fill with warm memories, but in my case, maybe less memorabilia. I envision the new centre of our home being the kitchen, not the garage-museum. A place, with lots of room around the kitchen table where we can relax with a good home cooked meal and a glass of vino or an ice cold beer when our own grown-up 'snack gang' drops by!
And if the garage door opener works without any issues, well, that's just a bonus.
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