The House On Rock Springs Road

I normally don't share any personal writings of mine. I think it's probably due to the fact that when I write about personal experience, I'm writing to understand what I went through and how I feel about it now. I write for myself--not others.

Though I hide it well, I'm a very sensitive person. I always have been. I feel things long after they're over. And I continually work through them over and over again.

When my parents separated in the summer of 2001, I went through a lot of emotions. It was the most difficult period of my life thus far. And while I've moved on and have learned to accept things the way they are, the emotions from that late August day still find me sometimes. I don't know that I'll ever really get over all that happened, but I know that writing about it has always--and will always--be the best way to cope with what I went through.

A few years ago, I wrote this story about a house we lived next to (and then moved into) about a decade ago. Though we moved often, there was something wonderful about this place. It was the first time I found peace after many long months of turmoil. I haven't really shared this story with anyone outside of my mother, my husband, and one of the five boys that lived (and still lives) in the house. But something keeps telling me to share it on this blog.

I do believe that there are places in our past that we will always consider home, even longer after we've left them. They give us strength long after we've grown up and entered the real world. And that's what this house has done for me.

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The House On Rock Springs Road

There is a green house that sits quietly on Rock Springs Road undisturbed by the cars that frequently pass by. And though the aged dwelling is often overlooked by the average passerby, it happens to be the most spectacular place in the world to me.

My journey to its doorstep began with a broken heart. After the destruction of my parents’ marriage, God knew I needed a safe place to heal. He, alone, guided my footsteps to its wooden front door, which has since been replaced by one of darker coloring. I didn’t expect to find much upon my first arrival, but my life—my path—has been completely altered all because of the house on Rock Springs Road.

The average days at the house were spent in constant motion. I played baseball in the grassy front yard, climbed the big dirt pile beneath the tall, sturdy trees, and ran around—carefree and innocent—until my legs ached. It was there, at the house on Rock Springs Road, that I fell in love with the childhood I had always craved. And for the first time since my parents’ separation, I was happy. Inconceivably happy.

Inside the house on Rock Springs Road lived five boys. They hadn’t come into much contact with a thirteen year-old girl before I showed up. It took a while for them to get used to having this mysterious creature, with her long brown hair and shrill scream, hanging around. But one day, out of the blue, they seemed to accept me without reservation. I was no longer considered someone to keep at arm’s length. I had become a friend, teammate, and partner-in-crime. I never told them that their acceptance meant the world to me; I wish I had.

Time passed quickly at the house on Rock Springs Road and I started growing into a young woman whose path was pulling her in a different direction. The house knew it could no longer shelter me from the harsh realities of the world and sent me away. I was angry that it had ordered me to leave when I considered the dwelling my own personal lighthouse—the only glimmer of hope when caught between the treacherous waters of a stormy sea. But like all good things in this temporary life, my time there had come to an end. The house had offered me everything it could and no longer had anything left to give me. It had healed my broken heart and was now sending me on my way.

After my sordid departure, I morphed into a monster. I was thrown into the real world and it broke me in two. My innocence was shattered. Everything I knew to be good and right in the world was at the house on Rock Springs Road. So, I attempted to find somewhere else to shelter me, but there was no safe place to be found. The crooked paths of life broke my spirit and I began losing faith in God.

 A few rough years came and went. I made bad choices. I paid the consequences for my actions and somehow found a way to make peace with myself. One morning, I woke up to find clarity standing over me. The house on Rock Springs Road had given me time to prepare for the real world and I had wasted the strength it had given me on bitter feelings. I felt ashamed that I had failed the house. The young girl who first walked through its door was searching for strength; now the young woman I had become was searching for forgiveness.

The more I searched for strength within myself, the stronger I became. My faith was slowly restored as I learned how to trust God—instead of myself—with my future. Hope once again decimated the dark moments. Eventually, I came to terms with the fact that there was no longer a place I could turn to when I needed to heal. And that was the very first lesson the house taught me. This life is unbearably hard, but it’s even more difficult to get by when we turn our backs on the people and the places that have always rooted for us, have always wished the best for us, and have always loved us.

God remained when nothing else did. He opened doors, closed them, and pushed me through windows I didn’t think I could fit through. I had good days and bad ones. Love found me when I least expected it and brought me more joy than anything had in a very long time. I clung to it, healed from it, and decided to put everything I had into it. Much to my disbelief, the faithful love of a man led me to the one place I thought I could never return.

My first few moments back inside the house on Rock Springs Road were uncomfortable. Where did I fit into this place now? Why did my every move inside its four walls feel so awkward? My expectations were too high and they were immediately crushed.

The boys were different and I felt awkward around them, too. They no longer looked at me and saw a familiar face. I became upset. I wanted back what I had lost. Their friendship. Their acceptance. But too much time had passed and I wasn’t sure how to repair our broken relationships. Life had altered each of us so that we no longer resembled the children who once spent hours playing baseball in the front yard. That was the second lesson I learned. Time changed all of us. The more we resisted those changes, the more they persisted.

 Disappointment coursed through me as I sat in my car after the brief reunion with the house. Staring at the green-painted wood, I felt my heart throb. Its outside had not changed. It looked the same as it always had. The inside was exactly as I remembered. The change that I felt was not in the house or its occupants; the change was in me. I had grown up. I had become a woman who no longer allowed the world to hurt her. The house on Rock Springs Road was a reminder that I had once been young and severely wounded. Those wounds had been the world’s doing and the house had always given me the will to overcome them. The strength I had managed to find outside—in the real world—had given me an independence I had not possessed before. My independence cut me off from the one place that had always given me the strength I needed in my darkest hours. But I was determined to not give up on the house like I had before. I hoped that time would fix all that was broken.

My second return to the house came not long after the first. Expectations were different this time around. I only wished to spend time at the house—to become familiar once again with the place that had housed me during the scariest storms of my life. I succeeded in opening myself up to it once more. That was the third lesson I learned. If I expected the house to be open, I had to be willing to be the first to bare the deepest parts of my soul. And I did.

I began spending more time at the house after that. I drank in the cool breeze that wafted through the open windows. It was the same breeze that had always visited before. The large tree in the backyard that had held my younger self within its branches and leaves still provided shade on hot summer days. And as I looked around, taking in all that I had missed, I saw memory after memory form in my mind and then disappear into the past. This house was as much a part of me as the blood that flowed through my veins.

Slowly but surely I made peace with the house. I learned how to forgive life for taking me away from its warm walls. And for sending me back to it when I didn’t think I could walk through its front door again. But more than anything, I learned how to forgive myself. That was the fourth and final lesson the house taught me. Sometimes the forgiveness I am seeking is not from who or what I’ve cast blame on; it is my own mercy that I desperately desire.

On that doorstep, beneath the summer sun, my heart was healed again.

The house and I are on common ground these days. We can never go back to a time and place untouched by the real world, but we can move forward. As long as the door is always open, waiting for my return, I will come back. Because it has given me peace in the middle of life’s storms, lessons too invaluable to forget, and the faith I needed to overcome a broken past. I think that’s what God had in mind for me when He guided my trembling footsteps to its front door all those years before.

If you pass by the green house on Rock Springs Road, it will appear to be nothing more than a house. But if you take a closer look, you will see a place where magic transpired and a heart was healed.