The End of a Cycle (Well, almost…)
I just woke up from an unpleasant dream. I can no longer get back to sleep.
In the dream, I arrived back at my parents’ old house in the middle of the night. Nobody was home, but the lights were on, which was alarming to me. That, and there were things scattered everywhere. I couldn’t comprehend why.
I then realized that my parents no longer lived here and that the new owners had recently taken over. What would they do if they discovered that I was back here, in the middle of the night?? The panic in me began to rise. At the same time, I started to notice how many of our belongings had been left behind, so I frantically tried to gather everything before the owners got home. I was sure they’d be here any minute. A sign of headlights flashed through the windows from the outside.
I’m awake.
All of a sudden, I remember that I’m still holding onto the key from my childhood home. Why hadn’t I handed it over our final evening at the house, as we were packing away the final boxes last week? Some confused logic had me thinking that I still needed the darn key, even though we’d established hours earlier that Edgar and I would park the U-Haul at our place and head out directly from there.
As my mother finished going over the little kinks, tips, and tricks around the home she’d lived in and taken care of for 40 years to the young couple who’d soon be breathing new life into it, I stood there explaining that I’d swing by after my trip to Ontario to leave my key with them. The couple seemed a little apprehensive at first, maybe just confused, but being kind people, they said it would be fine for me to drop it off at a later time. I thanked them and carried on with the loading of the truck.
When I think of it now, there was absolutely no reason for me to hold onto my key. One week later, I guess this is the house’s way of communicating to me: the cycle that I thought was finally over after months of intense labour clearing, sorting, selling, and moving — is yet to be closed.
