We know our house meant something to you, but the thing is, to us, it’s just our house. Our home. Nothing more. Four bedrooms, two and a half baths. It’s the place where we live, now in our retirement years, when we don’t travel as much as we used to, and long after we’ve seen our son go off into the world. Those days, which included the years when you were a frequent guest here, have long since vanished. Which makes us wonder if it is appropriate for you to keep revisiting us, in whatever manner, to relive those times we could hear you snoring on the downstairs sofa-bed or injecting our dinner conversation with your mumbled observations and inside jokes, whose only receptive audience was our son. We don’t want to be mean, but have you ever considered that we spend far less time thinking about you than you seem to spend dwelling upon us?
So, stop it. Please!
Because we can feel you thinking about the house again. Going through each room. Reliving all those memories, which, we hate to point out, aren’t really that memorable, save for the attention you seem to give them, over and over again. You were a kid; our son was a kid. The two of you did your kid thing here sometimes, in this house. That’s really all there is to say. Those memories aren’t even interesting. Not by a longshot.
So, why can’t you leave us alone?
Here’s something we bet you didn’t know: you always talked with your mouth full. At dinner. We even made it into a little family joke, when you weren’t around. We took turns, doing impressions of you talking with your mouth full, totally oblivious to the lettuce sticking between your teeth or the beets congregating around your braces. We still do the impression today, during the holidays, if someone thinks to mention you. We really get into it. We make sure to get it just right. It’s kind of a tradition.
So maybe we do think of you. Sometimes. But not as often as you think of us. It’s not even close.
