Home Away from Home 16 candles on the cake this year. 15 candles last year. Each year celebrated with the same family members hovering over the same kitchen table in the same beach house as every year before. Countless first-times recorded here, starting off rather simple at younger ages: first time riding a bike without training wheels, first time learning how to swim, first time going to the beach and experiencing the ocean, first time getting your food stolen by a seagull on the beach. However, as time progressed, me, my cousin’s, and sister’s ages were not the only thing that changed: first time not having a sibling there to celebrate my birthday since they were off in college, first time sitting on the beach with your friends rather
…show more content…
Once stepping foot through the front door, my problems that I thought were so dramatic did not seem as big anymore. Mommom’s house wasn’t like my house in Newark, Delaware. No, it was a majestical difference with that indescribable smell once you stepped foot outside of the car into the salty air. The singing of birds playing in the trees and the incessant buzz of neighbors mowing their lawns. The house was not extravagant. No, just a normal beach house with a normal kitchen, normal sized family room and dining room. Each wall plastered with framed photos of my entire family. Photos of my mother and her siblings from when they were little placed next to countless embarrassing pictures of me and my sisters and cousins from our younger days. Little nick-nacks sat on the counter of every dresser in the house from the various and numerous countries my grandmother visited over the years. Drawings and art pieces hung up from school projects when we were younger-colorful scribbles that my Mommom viewed as beautiful art. Everyone in this family thought of here as their home. Where my aunts and uncles shared their childhood memories, where they learned how to ride a bike for the first time, where they had learned to swim for the first time. It didn’t matter that we’ve all grown up, the memories stuck to the house like glue. They grew up in the same rooms we spent our summer days in, swimming in the same pool we learned to swim in, riding their bikes down the same exact trails that we ride off of early every
Once stepping foot through the front door, my problems that I thought were so dramatic did not seem as big anymore. Mommom’s house wasn’t like my house in Newark, Delaware. No, it was a majestical difference with that indescribable smell once you stepped foot outside of the car into the salty air. The singing of birds playing in the trees and the incessant buzz of neighbors mowing their lawns. The house was not extravagant. No, just a normal beach house with a normal kitchen, normal sized family room and dining room. Each wall plastered with framed photos of my entire family. Photos of my mother and her siblings from when they were little placed next to countless embarrassing pictures of me and my sisters and cousins from our younger days. Little nick-nacks sat on the counter of every dresser in the house from the various and numerous countries my grandmother visited over the years. Drawings and art pieces hung up from school projects when we were younger-colorful scribbles that my Mommom viewed as beautiful art. Everyone in this family thought of here as their home. Where my aunts and uncles shared their childhood memories, where they learned how to ride a bike for the first time, where they had learned to swim for the first time. It didn’t matter that we’ve all grown up, the memories stuck to the house like glue. They grew up in the same rooms we spent our summer days in, swimming in the same pool we learned to swim in, riding their bikes down the same exact trails that we ride off of early every